3D Television Technology

Anaglyph 3D

Have you ever been to a 3D movie where you had to wear a pair of glasses with red and blue filters on them like the ones shown below? If you have, then you have seen a movie that was made with anaglyph 3D technology.

Photograph of a pair of plastic anaglyph glasses. The right lens in cyan in colour and the left lens is red.[1]

If you were to look at the film strip from a film that was made with anaglphy technology, you will see two different images on the film (see the image below). When you sit in the theater watching the film, the red filter on your glasses only allows one of the images on that film strip to be seen while the blue filter lets through the other image on the film strip. This means that the eye with the red filter in front of it will see one image and the eye with the blue filter in front of it will see another. Due to stereopsis, your brain will take the two images that your eyes see and turn them into a single image. To your brain, this image will have depth to it and look three dimensional. An anaglyph image can be seen below; if you have a pair of red-blue anaglyph glasses, try them out!

Anaglyph of Saguaro National Park at dusk. The image has two identical sub images; one red and one blue of the same scene.[2]