The Functional Holography analysis method was first introduced in 2004 by Itai Baruchi and Eshel Ben-Jacob, for analysis of recorded human brain activity. The term
hologram stands for “whole”—holo in Greek, plus “information” or “message”—gram in Greek. In a holographic photography, the information describing a 3D object is encoded on a two-dimensional
photographic film, ready to be regenerated into a holographic image or hologram. A characteristic feature is the “whole in every part” nature of the process—a small part of the photographic film can generate the whole picture, but with fewer details. Another property is high tolerance to noise and high robustness to lesion: even with many imperfections or with several pixels removed, the image of the object as a whole is still retained in the hologram. To magnify a part of the original 3D object, one needs to produce a new photographic film for the part to be magnified. Another related feature is the holographic superposition—when illuminated together (placed side by side), two holograms can generate a superposition of the corresponding two 3D objects. Superposition of objects can also be made by imprinting the images of the two (or more) 3D objects on the same holographic film. These and other special features of hologram are due to the way the information is encoded on the films—not a direct projection of the picture in real space but in the correlations between the pixels. These are converted back to a picture in three dimensions by proper illumination. The above properties of holograms guided the development and are the rationale behind the functional holography method presented here. The term “functional” is to indicate that the analysis is in the space of functional correlations that serve the analogue role to the long-range correlations imprinted on the photographic film (by the use of the interference of coherent lights). The Functional Holography methodology shares the special features of holograms—tolerance to noise, robustness to lesion, holographic superposition and holographic zooming. ==Algorithm==