Gallery: Goofy Glasses Hold Key to 3-D's Future
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Watching a 3-D movie until recently meant wearing flimsy, plastic glasses with red and blue lenses. That was the tech that dominated theaters when the first 3-D movies made their big-screen debut in the early 1950s. After a decades-long hiatus, 3-D made a comeback in a big way last year, with Hollywood hits such as *Avatar*, *Alice in Wonderland*, *Coraline* and *Monsters vs. Aliens*. And now stores like Costco and Best Buy have started selling 3-D TVs, while PC makers are offering 3-D laptops. 3-D content has evolved, and so have 3-D glasses. They have gone from being paper throwaways to sophisticated, stylish wraparounds from companies like Oakley and Gunnar Optiks, and they incorporate a variety of technologies aimed at making the movies more realistic, colorful and bright. But one thing remains the same: You still have to wear the glasses. *Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com*
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Anaglyph Glasses ---------------- For most of us, our introduction to 3-D was through paper glasses with brightly colored red and blue, or red and green, filters. These cheap, disposable glasses are used to view what’s known as anaglyph images. These images are made of two color layers, superimposed but slightly offset to create the illusion of depth. The tinting on the glasses acts as a color filter, so the image specific to that particular eye is seen only by that eye. With both eyes seeing slightly different perspectives of the same image, a 3-D effect is created. But these glasses can make you sick — literally. They can induce nausea and headaches, and the image quality is pretty poor. The color filtering also limits the colors that can be used to create content, so 3-D glasses had no choice but to evolve to better technologies. *Photo: [Rachel Johnson/Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachel- johnson/4304868813/)*
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Active-Shutter Glasses ---------------------- 3-D works on the idea of optical separation: Your eyes each see slightly different images of the same scene, because they're in slightly different positions. The brain uses the difference between those two images to create the perception of depth. With active-shutter 3-D glasses, electronics finds a way to automate that, so each eye sees the right set of images. Active-shutter glasses are battery-powered and have shutters that open and close rapidly. Each shutter is synchronized to transmit the wanted image and block out the unwanted one. The glasses work in tandem with an HDTV where left and right images are alternated rapidly. The result is that the left eye sees only the intended left view of the image, and the right eye sees only the intended right view. It all happens so fast that your brain blends it together into a single, stereoscopic image. So far, major consumer-electronics companies including Sony and Panasonic have said they will support active-shutter glasses. Though there’s no ghosting effect or delayed images with these glasses, they can cause a loss of picture brightness, making the images seem a little dull. And in case of case of fast-moving sequences like a NASCAR race, the flicker can be noticeable. *Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com*
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Polarized Glasses ----------------- An alternative to active-shutter glasses is polarized glasses that have lenses similar to those on sunglasses. They are lightweight, more stylish and promise to be cheaper than active-shutter glasses. In case of polarized glasses, the lenses have polarization that is adjusted to be orthogonal — set perpendicularly at 90-degree angles — to one another. The glasses work with a compatible 3-D display, which emits images that are polarized in orthogonal directions, so each eye sees the correct image. Polarized glasses are becoming popular in movie theaters because they are cheap enough to be distributed widely and powerful enough to offer a quality 3-D experience. They also need no batteries. TV makers, though, seem to have mixed feelings about these glasses. Sony says it is committed to active-shutter glasses. Meanwhile, Nvidia, which is trying to promote 3-D in areas such as gaming and home PC entertainment, also says that it prefers active shutter glasses for home use. *Photo: ([fo.ol/Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/forresto/53484425/))*
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3-D Dolby Glasses ----------------- Polarized 3-D glasses for movie theaters don’t have to be shoddy quality. Companies such as Dolby are trying to develop complete 3-D systems that can raise the bar for the 3-D experience. To do that, they need to start with a better 3-D projection system. RealD cinema, currently the most widely used 3-D movie system in theaters, uses circular polarization — produced by a filter in front of the projector — to beam the film onto a silver screen. The filter converts linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light. This allows viewers to more naturally move their head without losing perception of the 3-D image and eliminates the need for two projectors shooting out images in different colors. Dolby’s 3-D system makes some changes. It has a filtration wheel installed inside the projector in front of a 6.5-kilowatt bulb. The wheel is divided into different parts, each filtering the projector light into different wavelengths. The wheel spins rapidly at about three times per frame. To go with this system, Dolby has created special glasses that contain passive lenses that only allow light waves aligned in a certain direction to pass through, separating the red, green and blue wavelengths for each eye. The glasses are pricey though, costing $17 apiece. But they can be washed and reused. *Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com*
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Universal Glasses ----------------- Even if you are sold on the idea of 3-D glasses, navigating through the different options out there isn’t easy. There is no truly universal pair of 3-D glasses today. That means each pair of 3-D glasses is matched to the TV it is bundled with. The glasses that work with your Sony 3-D TV, for instance, won’t work for watching Monday Night Football at a friend’s place on his Panasonic 3-D TV. That’s because of the proprietary communication protocols that TV makers use to synchronize the glasses and TV sets. Some companies are trying to change that. XpanD and Monster now offer what they call “universal” 3-D glasses — a single pair of glasses that they promise will work with most 3-D TV sets. But it’s more of a trick than a solution. TV makers have specific color characteristics for their sets, and the glasses that come with each 3-D set are tinted to be compatible. Today’s universal glasses can’t always match that. That means the "universal" glasses may show a 3-D effect, but the colors will be off. Meanwhile, the industry's Consumer Electronics Association is finalizing standards for the emitters on 3-D TVs, so all sets can use a common signal protocol. They hope it will lead to a standardization of the technology on the 3-D glasses in the next two to three years, and make the glasses interchangeable. *Photo: [dryxe/Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/dryxe/2260628915/)*
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Fashion 3-D Glasses ------------------- If 3-D glasses are here to stay, then you might as well look stylish wearing those, right? That’s what companies such as Oakley and Gunnar Optiks are trying to do: add some pizazz to the frumpy old glasses. Oakley launched a new range of 3-D eyewear in October. It also introduced a special-edition pair to celebrate the release of TRON: Legacy, a Disney 3-D film releasing in December. The TRON limited-edition 3-D glasses will have graphics that are a tribute to the movie. Oakley says its 3-D lens will be stylish and eliminate the ghosting or “cross talk” between images that’s a problem with cheap 3-D glasses. It also promises crisper images. Oakley and Gunnar Optiks are hoping eventually consumers will buy stylish and sophisticated 3-D glasses that they can take to movies. “Because a $300 million movie shouldn't be experienced with eyewear that costs less than a gum ball,” says Gunnar on its website. Oakley’s limited edition 3-D glasses will cost $150. *Photo: Oakley*
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No Glasses ---------- 3-D glasses can get sophisticated or fashionable. But the truth is that consumers would rather not have to wear any glasses while watching 3-D content. Today’s 3-D movie theaters can’t offer that. But on a smaller scale, for a single viewer at a time, there are ways to go glasses-free using lenticular lenses or the parallax barrier. A parallax barrier is a layer with slits that’s placed over an LCD screen to help produce the feeling of depth by directing slightly different images to each eye. Lenticular lenses are small cylindrical plastic lenses that are placed on a transparent sheet that is fixed on the LCD screen. The viewer’s eye, directly perpendicular to the screen, sees the portion of the LCD that is directly under each lens. The other eye, observing the screen from a slightly different angle, sees a portion of the LCD that is off-center under each lens. The brain then combines the two views to create the perception of depth. All this technology, though, has a lot of fine print. It requires an optimum viewing distance that depends on the screen size and technology. Move your head outside of the sweet spot, and the 3-D effect doesn't work as well. For that reason, it's best suited for single-viewer applications, like portable video games. It also doesn’t offer the same quality of image as 3-D glasses do. Still, companies are trying to improve glasses-free displays. Nintendo’s upcoming portable game player, the 3D-S, has a 3.5-inch glasses-free 3-D display. Meanwhile, cellphone makers are trying to introduce 3-D displays on handsets. Japan has already seen its first glasses-free 3-D phone in a device called the Hitachi Woo. *Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com*
