How Do Dolby 3D Glasses Work?
The latest sensation in movie theaters is the emergence of 3D movies. These movie theaters provide 3D glasses (for an additional cost) that allow you to see the unique effects added to the film. The benefit to the 3D movie is that you are fully immersed into the film with the images literally popping off the screen. While most of us are not concerned about the how, some people just have to know: How do those 3D glasses work?
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How
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The glasses work on a principle called stereoscopy, or 3D imaging. This is a technique that creates the illusion of depth in an image or video. The glasses' lenses contain passive filters to filter the primary colors (red, green and blue) to create the depth inside the screen. This gives the viewer the impression of looking into the screen as a window as well as images coming towards them.
Glasses
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Dolby uses interference filter technology, also known as Infitec. The lenses divide the color spectrum into six bands instead of three as we usually see. This gives us two bands of red, two bands of blue and two bands of green--one for each eye. The visual cortex of the brain combines the two images to give you the illusion of depth needed to perceive 3D.
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Polarization
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Dolby3D glasses use a specific polarization to filter the colors on the screen. This gives them a better reproduction of color, sharper and more detailed images and better contrast without the "ghosting" of images on the screen. What this means to the movie goer is brighter more vivid colors on clearer images with sharper details. Other 3D glasses use liner or circular polarization to achieve the 3D effect. However, these require silver screens or make it difficult for the eyes to focus on fast moving scene.
After the Movie
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After you watch the movie and leave the theater, there is a return basket for these glasses. The theater staff collects, cleans and sterilizes the glasses each day by theater staff during the slow times. The re-usability of the glasses offer not only an economic value to theaters to use Dolby3D, they also help to protect the environment. Each theater only has to buy one set of glasses per screen, and each pair can be reused up to 500 times.
Benefits
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Dolby3D offers a better viewing experience for some movie watchers because of the glasses they use. Viewers can move their heads as they want without losing the 3D effect, and the creation of depth within the screen (as opposed to everything popping out of it) is easier for the brain to process and will not cause headaches like other technology.
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References
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- Photo Credit box with movie film image by Oleg Verbitsky from Fotolia.com
