Beyond Anaglyph

[Steve Shovlar]

For the last couple of weeks I have been reading up on this, and think I have the basics sussed out. Well I hope so as I have ordered up some gear and will be out doing plenty of test shoots in the next month.

Anaglyth to me is out of the question. It's OK to show peole some work online, but certainly not good enough to show off your work at an exhibition.

3D TVs are not yet out, though just around the corner. Sony and Panasonic have announced their range, that will be their flagship range and therefore very expensive at first.

So you will need two cameras to shoot the 3D. You will need Tim Dashwoods FCP plugin.(free with watermark or $389 without it)
You will need an NVidia graphics card above a 8800.

You will need a 3D capable monitor. Good news, Alienware and Acer have new models out now. ( Not too expensive)

You will need a pair of active shutter 3D glasses ( NVidia for about £135)

You will need a 3D player.
StereoMovie Player

And you are ready to go. I think. I haven't yet got that far. Buying the Alienware monitor and 3D glasses this week.

I haven't yet worked out why I would need Cineform's 3DNero. Perhaps someone could explain for me on that one.

If I am wrong here in what's needed, please let me know!

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

If we have a stereo player, can't we make it run on a laptop or a CRT monitor? This might bring down the cost of buying a 3D ready LCD panel.

[Steve LaPierre]

Originally Posted by Adam Stanislav

I have never done it myself yet, but I have had good experience with berezin.com, so I would buy such filters from this site. However, since I have not used such filters, I cannot vouch to their quality, only that I have had good experience with that online store.

I would actually contact the store owner and ask him which filters are the right ones for me before I would buy.

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

you can get a pair of 4X4 circular polarizer for 25$ here
Polarization.com

just put them between two glass plates from a picture frame.

I am still in the zero budget testing stage of trying my polarized projection using pico projectors and have a question about the polarizing filter itself. I ordered a sample of silver screen and just received it this week. So I used a pair of Real3D glasses to act as my filter and shined an LED flashlight through it, then observe it on the screen wearing another pair of Real3d glasses. This seems to work, but I am wondering if there is a higher degree of polarization using an actual circular polarizing filter than would be achieved with just the Real3D glasses? Is there a significant difference between the filter and the glasses? Some light still goes through with the glasses but I am thinking that this would be the case even with an actual polarized filter.

Along with my almost no cost testing, I was able to shine my LED flashlight through an old photo slide and see the projection on my silver screen with the corresponding eye. What I do notice is that the right eye glass of the Real3D used as a filter is observed with the left eye when wearing the Real3d glasses. This seems to be the opposite of just shining the light through the glasses and directly looking at it. Does the silver screen somehow reverse the polarization? And of course I may be totally screwed up about how I am interpreting my results.

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Steve LaPierre

Does the silver screen somehow reverse the polarization?

If it is circular polarization, yes it does. See page 87 of this book (it is in the PDF format, free download).

[Steve LaPierre]

Originally Posted by Adam Stanislav

If it is circular polarization, yes it does. See page 87 of this book (it is in the PDF format, free download).

Thanks, it doesn't get into the technical detail of how it is reversing but that is good since I most likely wouldn't understand the physics involved. It appears to be similar to the image reversal of a mirror. At least I know I wasn't totally confused about what I saw.

[Adam Stanislav]

Yes, it is the left-right reversal of an image. When the "circle" of the polarized light reflects, the left-hand circle becomes a right-hand circle and vice versa.