Playing with 3-D

I've always been a big fan of 3-D movies. Yes, they're usually hokie in content and cause eye strain over a long period of time, but the next great barrier the film can overcome is the third dimension. I read a very interesting article where James Cameron, Titanic director, states that his research has shown that eye strain from watching 3-D comes from the fact that films are projected at 24 frames a second and that, with digital projects, that frame rate can be increased to just about any number per second, where the eye strain would disappear.

Imagine watching a sporting event at a stadium seating theater in 3-D? Pretty cool idea. Unfortunately there are no easily implementable 3-D home video options right now, so I decided to look at an old fashioned 3-D technology.

I've been looking for a simple way to take 3-D still pics, using the old fashioned Red-Blue glasses concept, called Anaglyphs. I had a pair of the Red-Blue glasses from when Spy Kids 3 came out and I found a free program that will convert pics into these 3-D pics. The end result is really cool.

What you have to do is take two pictures about 2-3 inches apart (eye distance) and then merge them using this program to create the 3-D image. It's basic, but the 3-D images are pretty amazing, to be honest. You have to play around with how close some of the items may be and how many levels of depth you are trying to capture at one time... it's a hit or miss proposition, but if you can make it work, it's really cool.

Below are some pics from my experiments... if you don't have a pair of Red-Blue glasses (Red on the left side), then these pics won't work for you. If you do, click on pics below to make them larger and enjoy.