Sunday, October 17, 2010

How Does A 3D Film Look So Real?

By Monique K. Abbott

It was once very rare to hear of a 3D film coming to theaters, but it has become common in recent years. Film makers have been working with 3D movies since the 1950's when producers first began finding ways to add depth to their motion pictures; modern artists have many more tools, however, than were available 60 years ago. The optical illusions used in a 3D film trick your eye and mind into believing that the pictures are jumping right off the screen; doing this is no easy task, and it demands a vast array of complex technology.

The key concept behind creating a 3D film is recording the images the same way your eyes see them, using information gathered from both the left and right eye to create one image; this is called stereoscopic vision. To get the proper visual effect, 3D movies must be filmed using cameras with two side by side lenses. When a movie is developed totally using computers, such as Avatar, the 3D effect is achieved by adapting the animation process to incorporate stereoscopic vision. A 3D film is actually projected on two projectors at the same time; each one sends the film captured by one of the two dual camera lenses.

You have likely seen an old style 3D film which uses special red and blue 3D glasses to create the three dimensional depth effect. These glasses work because the two images fused to create a stereoscopic film were sent through a red light filter and a blue light filter, which can combine when you wear the 3D glasses. The optical illusions in these movies worked great, but film makers were held back in many ways, especially with the colors they could project.

Vibrating light waves moving on one plane, referred to as polarized light, is how we watch 3D movies today. While you just see one image, there are actually two projectors sending out one vertically and one horizontally polarized image during the 3D film.

Your 3D glasses prevent one type of light wave from entering each eye so that your left eye sees only horizontal waves and your right only sees the vertical ones. Without this technology, 3D movies would not be as realistic; filtering light waves gives you the illusion of depth that makes a 3D film pop off the screen and come alive. - 40728

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