One Dimension, Two Dimension, Red Dimension, Blue Dimension

Madeline Lillie Trevor Gross Maclay School

Introduction

How do you create gore, explosions, and magic that can jump off any screen? It might seem like real magic or complex technology, but most of the work done to make 3D image pop occurs in the brain Although there are multiple different types of 3D glasses and methods of projection, we are going to focus on anaglyphic glasses In order to understand how 3D glasses work, it is important to understand the simple science behind the movie magic

How It’s Made: 3D Glasses

The seemingly complicated 3D glasses we all know and love can be boiled down to nothing more than some plastic and color To make the most basic type of 3D glasses, all that is needed are a pair of glasses frames (with or without lenses), a small sheet of plastic if needed to cut out your own lenses, and something to color the lenses, like a permanent marker Either just color the existing lenses, or tape the colored plastic ones, and the glasses should function like normal. To take advantage of this 3D effect, the hue of whatever is being observed must be adjusted to match that of the blue lens Then, voilà! A basic pair of 3D glasses, as your service

The 3D Illusion

The electromagnetic (EM) waves that compose electromagnetic radiation can be imagined as a self-propagating transverse oscillating wave of electric and magnetic fields Polarization means the EM waves are oscillating in only one magnetic field Polarized light means the electric field oscillates along one axis called polarization axis Other light gets partially or completely blocked Sunlight is a source of unpolarized light which means its oscillating along different directions When this unpolarized light is passed through a polarizer it allows only those waves which are oscillating along the polarization axis Polarizer is an optical filter that allows light waves of certain polarization to pass through it The material used in these filters has a molecular structure that can oscillate in only one direction These are called linear polarizers because the light can pass only through one axis Humans actually look at things from two different perspectives and our brain combines these two images to give us the sense of depth Each eye has a viewing angle of about 150° but the binocular vision is 114° which actually covers our nose It means we see our nose continuously but our brain just chooses to ignore it for “convenience” So, for the sense of depth we just need to look at images from two different perspectives and our brains will do the rest Then polarization comes in as we can project two different images of different polarization on a 2D screen and by wearing glasses we can allow our eyes to see image of only one perspective and we get that feel of 3D image The most basic type of 3D glasses are called Anaglyph glasses Anaglyph glasses have different color filters for each eye The projected image has different color elements and the filters allow both eyes to see different images

Acknowledgements

Thank you, Dr Berk, for supporting us and allowing us to start this project Additionally, thank you Dr Perry for helping us to see the project through its completion, and for helping us brainstorm