Montville — The weird thing about holograms is that they typically can be seen only from a certain angle, in a certain light.

So a visit to the offices of Rayvel, a company that specializes in developing advanced three-dimensional holographic images, can be a bit unsettling at first. You're looking at a bottle of perfume, for instance, and then suddenly it morphs into a very lifelike woman's face by moving a pace away.

Rayvel founder and president Joe Ciaudelli demonstrated the unsettling aspects of holography in a mask-like Halloween display at his Uncasville home last year that he calls "The Alien," an image that now holds sway at his company's headquarters off Bridge Street.

"The holographic world is really an interesting world," Ciaudelli said. "It's where technology and art meet."

Ciaudelli has been experimenting with holography for more than a dozen years, and his company in March announced that the firm had been awarded its third patent. The new patent, for a wide-angle hologram technology, allows for the creation of interesting 3D effects usable in advertising signage and point-of-purchase displays.

"A hologram is kind of like wind chimes — without wind, the chime doesn't really do anything," Ciaudelli said. "A hologram needs light from a specific angle."

Ciaudelli explained that typical holograms require lights to be placed at a 45 degree angle for maximum effect. His wide-angle holographic technique means that light sources can be placed nearly parallel to the image, which means displays don't have to be as elaborate.

"This invention permits these and other distinct attributes of true holograms to be leveraged in a wider variety of enclosures," said Tom Cvetkovich, a master holographer who works with Rayvel, in a statement.

Another of Rayvel's patents is for so-called narrow-angle holograms, which the company uses in its innovative "HoLocator" product that makes street numbers pop out on darkened roadways when illuminated by headlights.

Its other patent is for a product called OTS 2000, which uses defraction technology to measure defects as small as 1 micron — a hundred times smaller than a human hair. Ciaudelli said the machines, which took three years to develop from conception to execution, are currently used by Agilent Technologies to measure such items as solar panels and flat screens for televisions and computers.

The product won top prize in the 2007 Connecticut Quality Improvement Awards.

"It went from a pencil sketch on a napkin to a Silicon Valley clean room," he said. "This put us on a new plateau."

But the economic downturn that occurred about the same time as the OTS 2000 came out limited the amount of funds that tech companies could devote to such expensive machines, Ciaudelli said, so the company has turned to a few niche products to make ends meet.

Among these novelties are holographic key chains, coasters, album covers and wrapping paper. The company also makes embossed stickers that help to identify genuine products, such as Neumann microphones, and Ciaudelli said he is currently working on developing a catalog to promote distribution of Rayvel products.

In addition, Rayvel designs holographic laminates and seals for government security purposes because holography is much harder to counterfeit than other types of images. Ciaudelli said true holography, as opposed to what he called "3-D simulation," is an image-capturing method generally transferred to glass in which laser light is split into two beams, the first of which is sent directly to film and the other of which is reflected off another object before going to film.

One of the hallmarks of true holograms is that they display "parallax," meaning that different images can be seen depending on the viewing position.

"For example, with a true holographic image of dice, an observer on the left would see different numbers on the dice faces than an observer viewing it from the right of the hologram," according to the Rayvel website.

Ciaudelli said holograms also can be produced using digital methods, though the resolution today is still not as refined as with film. The images that he designs are all produced at Ciaudelli's home studio in Uncasville, where he has a setup that ensures even microscopic vibrations are eliminated — because any vibration will ruin the exposure.

Ciaudelli said he believes his company has only scratched the surface of holographic possibilities and that the future of visual exploration lies in 3D imagery. He compared the future evolution of images to the changes the music business saw when two-channel stereo morphed into surround sound.

"We're going to make that same transition in visual technology," he said.

He noted the so-called Pepper's ghost technique helped bring Michael Jackson back from the dead during the 2014 Billboard Music Awards using visual illusions involving projections and mirrors, but said it is a misnomer to equate such 3D effects with holograms. Similarly, 3D movies are cool, but they are still not quite as amazing as what future holographic effects could create.

"Until we get rid of the glasses, it will be a novelty," he said.

l.howard@theday.com

Twitter: @KingstonLeeHow

What: Rayvel

Who: Joe Ciaudelli, president and founder

Where: 14 Bridge St, Montville

No. of employees: 2

Years in business: 12

Phone: (860) 848-7422

Website: www.rayvel.com

Email: info@rayvel.com