Watermarking of three-dimensional objects by digital holography.

We present an optical method for information watermarking of three-dimensional (3D) objects by digital holography. A hidden image is embedded by double phase encoding in a phase-shift digital hologram of the 3D object. We decode the watermarked hologram to reconstruct the hidden image and the 3D object. We use either the entire hologram or a part of it to decode the hidden image. Experiments are presented to illustrate the ability to recover both the 3D object and the decoded hidden image. Digital holograms of the 3D object are obtained by optical experiments. The watermarking process, 3D object reconstruction, and hidden image recovery are performed digitally. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of 3D object watermarking by use of a phase encoding technique and digital holography.