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From: good@pixar.uucp (Craig Good: Central Marin Home for the Bewildered)
Newsgroups: comp.graphics,rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: How to view Superbowl 3-D
Keywords: TV 3-D graphic
Message-ID: <3047@pixar.UUCP>
Date: 24 Jan 89 21:21:58 GMT
References: <3230@datapg.MN.ORG>
Sender: news@pixar.UUCP
Reply-To: good@pixar.uucp (Craig Good: Central Marin Home for the Bewildered)
Distribution: na
Organization: Pixar -- Marin County, California
Lines: 33

In article <3230@datapg.MN.ORG> sewilco@DataPg.MN.ORG (Scot E Wilcoxon) writes:
:I don't care for the Diet version of Coke, so I don't have
:the "official" 3-D glasses.  Nevertheless, I taped the
:Superbowl halftime show in case it was worth later getting
:the glasses.  I found the 3-D effect can be viewed from
:the tape (SP speed) as well as live.
:
:All I knew of the glasses was what was shown on TV, with
:an almost clear left lens and a dark right lens.  I
:suspected the right lens was either polarized or was
:creating an interference pattern (perhaps both), as
:the image was supposed to look good without glasses.
:

Your empiricism is good, but you nicked yourself on Occam's Razor.  It
turns out the system is diabolically simple.  Putting a dark lens
over your right eye causes you to percieve the image slightly later
than with the left eye.  No, the filter doesn't slow down the light.
There is some artifact which I don't understand at work here.  My suspicion
is that rods are slower than cones.  Whatever the reason, it works.  So
the whole trick to broadcasting this kind of "3-D" is to move the camera
right-to-left.  That moves the image left-to-right.  Your right eye sees
the image later, after a perspective shift, and presto!

I don't know how these guys sold it as a licensed product since you
can't very well patent a camera move, and the glasses are simply one
clear lens and one grey one.  Since it's based on motion artifacts there
are annoying things about motion artifacts in the image.  Pretty darn
clever, though.  


		--Craig
		...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good