Bubblegram

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Solid block of glass or plastic exposed to lasers to generate 3-D designs inside

title: "Bubblegram" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["3d-imaging", "glass-art", "laser-applications"] description: "Solid block of glass or plastic exposed to lasers to generate 3-D designs inside" topic_path: "general/3d-imaging" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubblegram" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Solid block of glass or plastic exposed to lasers to generate 3-D designs inside ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Laser_glass_sculpture_caffeine_molecule.jpg" caption="A laser glass sculpture of a [[caffeine]] molecule"] ::

A bubblegram (also known as laser crystal, Subsurface Laser Engraving, 3D crystal engraving or vitrography) is a solid block of glass or transparent plastic that has been exposed to laser beams to generate three-dimensional designs inside. The image is composed of many small points of fracture or other visible deformations and appears to float inside the block.

Description

Each point is created by a laser beam focused to high intensity at that location by a computer-controlled opto-mechanical system. A complex or highly detailed image occupying a 5 cm (2 inch) cubic volume typically requires the creation of tens of thousands of such points.

Bubblegram images may be created by intersecting laser beams in appropriately doped plastic to induce a chemical reaction via heat or photonic excitation, creating bubbles or nodes where the plastic has a different index of refraction.

Glass block bubblegrams of Russian origin entered international commerce as a novelty in the late 1990s, but high prices and the predominantly simple, inartistic subject matter severely limited market penetration. In the early 2000s, a much less expensive, more visually appealing and highly diverse array of Chinese-made bubblegram novelties achieved wide commercial success in the United States, to the extent of becoming a fad: representations of monuments, corporate symbols, religious imagery, mythical creatures and nature scenes appeared in gift shops.

References

[https://web.archive.org/web/20001021052517/http://www.spie.org/web/oer/november/nov99/lasedamage.html "Laser-induced damage creates interior images"], ''OE Reports'', Number 191, November 1999 (via Internet Archive Wayback Machine). Retrieved 2013-02-16.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::