Direct Imaging · Security & authentication
Origination for optical variable devices
Maskless DLP®-based direct-write origination for holograms, diffractive gratings and micro-optics — the master layer behind banknotes, ID documents and brand protection.
What an OVD is
Security you can see and tilt
An Optical Variable Device changes what it shows as you move it — colour, image, depth or motion. Because the effect lives in surface structures measured in fractions of a micron, it cannot be photocopied, scanned or reprinted.
The effect is only ever as good as its master. Origination — writing that structure into resist — is where the security is decided, and it is exactly what a LUXBEAM® photohead does.
Why DLP® origination
One photohead, every structure
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Greyscale, not just on/off
Every micromirror carries its own exposure dose, so blazed gratings, kinoforms and continuous-relief micro-optics come out of the same head that writes line art.
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Sub-micron features
Line/space configurable down to 1 µm, with the dose control diffractive structures need — resolution and depth in one pass.
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Maskless by definition
No masks, no plates, no lead time. A new design is a new file, so an origination run can change on the morning it needs to.
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Stitch-free over large areas
Proprietary software removes stitching artefacts entirely — so a foil-wide pattern leaves no seam for a counterfeiter to find.
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Built for production, not the lab
The same photoheads run in high-volume imaging lines worldwide — assembled, aligned and tested in-house in Drammen.
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A subsystem, not a box
Optics, electronics, data path and LURIA software, specified around your stage, your substrate and your resist.
What it writes
From diffractive gratings to nano-relief
Tell us the structure and the substrate — we spec the head, the optics and the exposure recipe around them.
- Dot-matrix and high-resolution diffractive gratings
- Computer-generated holograms and kinoforms
- Blazed and multi-level greyscale relief
- Micro-lens and lens-array masters
- Guilloche, micro-text and nano-text
- Embossing shims and nickel master origination
Where it ends up
One master, many documents
The same origination process feeds every optical security programme we support:
Do you make the OVDs, or the equipment that writes them?
The equipment. Visitech builds the DLP®-based photohead — the imaging subsystem inside an origination or direct-imaging tool. Your process and your stage, our light engine.
How fine can you write?
Line/space is configurable across the range, from 30 µm down to 1 µm on the LLS1000. For diffractive work the governing figure is usually dose resolution rather than the line itself, and the two are specified together.
Can one head do both line art and diffractive structures?
Yes. Greyscale exposure is native to DLP®, so a head that images a conventional pattern can write continuous-relief structures in the same run — no second tool.
What software drives it?
LURIA, our application software: data preparation, exposure recipes and stage synchronisation. It is the same stack our lithography customers run in volume production.
Can we see a sample exposure before committing?
Usually, yes. Send us the structure and the resist you intend to use, and we will tell you what is realistic — and what it would take to get there.
Visitech inside
Ready to originate your next device?
Tell us the structure, the substrate and the volume — we will tell you which head writes it.