The principle of optical scanning holography (OSH) is proposed to acquire horizontal-parallax-only (HPO) holographic information electronically. We first briefly summarize the results of OSH and then discuss how HPO-electronic holographic information can be acquired using OSH. Finally we provide simulations to illustrate and clarify the proposed idea. Although many ideas of HPO-holography have been proposed and studied, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first proposed electronic technique to acquire HPO-holographic information. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.