A Comparison of 3D Display Techniques

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Both IMAX and REALD glasses use a set of polarized lenses to view stereoscopic movies at the Theatre. Polarized glasses benefit from the fact that each eye receives a full color image and this removes the problems caused by color ghosting. Linearly polarized systems usually require two aligned projectors that have their filters set at 45° and -45°.

The now rare StereoJet image technology allowed a stereoscopic printed image to be presented in a lightbox and viewed using polarized glasses.

Anaglyph glasses are very common. Red / Cyan anaglyph images are easy to prepare and can be viewed on computer monitors, and printed on consumer inkjet printers. Most of us can remember anaglyph glasses being included with comic books when we were kids. Stereoscopic images prepared using this technology often suffer from color ghosting artifacts. These artifacts can be reduced with color correction. In my experience Red / Cyan glasses provide better color fidelity than Red / Blue 3D glasses due to the fact the cyan channel has both blue and green color components.

You’re Going to Need Them for A While Yet!

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Modern day alchemists seem to include most of the major display manufacturers who all seem to have had an attempt at creating a 3D display that won’t require you to wear 3D glasses. To date they have all tried and, alas, all failed with no base-metal-to-gold scenario in sight.

Despite experimenting with different screen technologies, and more recently, eye-tracking, the effects for a single user (never mind a group), are poor at best. It seems no better than when Philips launched the WOW screen a few years back. The only WOW factor then was ‘wow I can’t believe they actually made it’! What makes this all even more interesting is my recent experience with the Nintendo 3DS. Launched as a revolution in glasses free technology, the supposed older generation XL console has been outselling it . Whisper it quietly, but perhaps 3D without glasses is not really what everyone wants – well not just yet.

Perhaps it’s better to just accept that for the next few years we need to embrace our beloved 3D glasses, whilst hoping that manufacturers can develop some that are at least seen as semi-cool. The days of glasses free will have to wait just a little bit longer, so wear yours with pride!

3D Movie Changes Man’s Vision

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Imagine not being able to see the world in 3-D until you went to see a 3-D movie. That is exactly what happened to Bruce Bridgeman of Santa Cruz, CA. Bridgeman says that he has struggled with depth perception his entire life. Nothing seemed to pop out to him and he would have to move his head in order to judge where objects were in space – until he went to see the movie Hugo in 3-D.

Things started to pop off the screen to him during the movie and things have continued to pop out for him in real life ever since that day back in February 2012. Bridgeman has a condition called intermittent exotropia in which one eye drifts outward and the brain only uses the image from the non-deviating eye. In order to see in 3-D one must be using both of their eyes as a team at the proper distance. Something about the movie stimulated his brain enough to make his eyes to start to realize that they were seeing more or less the same image at the same time and what if we were to work together? He doesn’t have normal depth perception but a visit to his optometrist proves that he had an “Ah-ha” moment as his depth perception score has dramatically improved.