First and foremost, the images presented by all other 3-D methods are double images, and therefore irritating and useless, when seen without the appropriate 3-D glasses. ChromaDepthTM 3-D images are clear, normal images when seen without our C3DTM glasses, then jump into great 3-D when viewed with these glasses. The 3-D effect of the C3DTM glasses is real, not an illusion.
ChromaDepthTM 3-D can be used with images in any color display medium, including laser shows, computer monitors, TV & video, film, and print. To understand why ChromaDepthTM 3-D can accomplish this, you must first understand the old 3-D methods.
In order to see in 3-D we have to get slightly different images into each of our two eyes. This normally occurs because our eyes are spaced about 2 3/4 inches apart and see the world from slightly different vantage points. The old Viewmaster® viewers you had as a kid worked this way by presenting different pictures to each eye. The new Nintendo Virtual Boy® works this way, too.
Traditional 3-D movies, Disney 3-D movies, the Sony 3-D Imax theatre, high-end 3-D workstation displays, and comic books also present two images to your eyes by putting both the left and right views together, then separating them with glasses that let each eye only see one image at a time. Comic books have traditionally used the red and green tinted glasses (called anaglyph) and movies have used anaglyph glasses or polarizing glasses. The better traditional 3-D systems use polarizing glasses, which look like sunglasses.
What each of these 3-D processes have in common is that they start with two images, a left and a right view called a stereo pair, then attempt by one means or another to get only one image, hopefully the correct image, into each eye. Having to accomplish this is what makes other 3-D methods awkward to design for and to implement. ChromaDepth TM 3-D provides a better way.
Instead of creating a left image and a right image, combining them, then separating them again, ChromaDepthTM 3-D takes a much simpler approach. The information that makes a 3-D image different from a 2-D image is the depth information which gives the image shape out of the plane of the image. In computer lingo, the screen coordinates are X and Y, while the depth information is the Z coordinate (into or out of the screen). Flat, 2-D images contain only X and Y information, while a 3-D image contains X, Y, and Z information. The differences in position between objects in the two images of a stereo pair convey the depth information with other 3-D methods.
ChromaDepthTM 3-D encodes the depth information by selecting the color of a surface point based on its Z coordinate. One image then carries the X and Y coordinates as normal, and the Z coordinates as color values. So far, so good. Now comes the hard part - converting the color information into visual depth information. This is what makes ChromaDepthTM 3-D so special.
Remember that to have 3-D, you must have stereo pair images enter the eyes, but a ChromaDepthTM 3-D depth encoded image is just a single image. Looking at a ChromaDepthTM 3-D image without the C3DTM glasses is just like looking at any other single image. When viewed through the C3DTM glasses, however, you see the image in 3-D: the optics in the glasses actually create a stereo pair from the single image, using the colors in the image to determine the three dimensional placement of the image components.
So, like other 3-D processes, the C3DTM 3-D glasses do provide a stereo pair to your eyes, but that stereo pair has been optically created by the glasses. Unlike other 3-D processes, the stereo pair never had to be created in the first place, never had to be separated, never had to be displayed, and never even exists until the single ChromaDepthTM 3-D image passes through the C3DTM glasses optics.
Other 3-D glasses contain colored plastic film or polarizing film, both of which are relatively easy to manufacture. The C3DTM glasses perform their magic through the use of ultra-precise micro-optics. Although these glasses optics just look like clear plastic film, the C3D TM glasses lenses contain millions of micro-optic structures per square inch. These high-efficiency diffractive optical elements actually move different colors into different image positions for each eye, thereby creating the required stereo pair.
The micro-optics in the C3DTM glasses are the highest precision optics ever mass produced. They are manufactured to a precision ten times more stringent than that required for making computer microchips.
Chromatek invented ChromaDepthTM 3-D and the C3DTM glasses. We designed and built our own equipment for manufacturing this material, and are the only source of these optics in the world. (Sure I want to know a bit more about how the idea came about)
The C3DTM glasses micro-optic structures are very, very small. Skin oils from your fingers form drops that are easily ten or twenty times the size of these optical structures, so fingerprints easily fill and cover them. Fortunately, the micro-optics are also quite durable, so the glasses can safely be cleaned with mild detergent (hand dishwashing soap), rubbing alcohol, or even glass cleaner (such as Windex® brand). The trick is to avoid messing up the cardboard by getting it wet.
We recommend using a Q-Tip® swab for the cleaning. If you use detergent, make a weak solution of detergent in warm water. If you use rubbing alcohol or glass cleaner use it full strength. Dip the Q-Tip® in the cleaner, shake off the excess solution, and gently rub it over one side of the glasses optics, being careful to not get the cardboard wet around the edges. Dip a fresh Q-Tip® in some clean water and use it to rinse off the cleaner, then dry the optic with the other end of the Q-Tip®. Turn the glasses over and repeat this process, and your C3DTM glasses will be in top form again.
You heard right, there are actually two different kinds of C3DTM glasses being produced. They are called C3DTM Standard and C3DTM HD (short for 'High Definition'). The Standard glasses provide the strongest 3-D effect, but may make an image appear blurry if it is viewed from more than a few feet. The HD glasses provide a sharper image than the Standard glasses but don't produce as great a 3-D effect. Children almost always prefer the Standard glasses for all types of viewing, from looking at their own 3-D drawings to watching TV, video, and movies. The HD glasses are usually preferred by adults for viewing computer graphics, slide shows, TV, and video. Adults usually prefer Standard glasses for viewing print graphics. Pure Color Laser Shows (such as those produced by AVI in Orlando, FL) use Standard glasses effectively, while Composite Color (RGB) Laser Shows (such as those produced by Laser Images, LA, CA) usually use HD glasses.
C3DTM Standard Glasses are best suited for children's use, especially with print images. These C3DTM Standard Glasses produce the strongest 3-D effect, but at the cost of some loss of of clarity in the image. Kid's eyes are not as far apart as adult's eyes, which limits the subtlety of 3-D they can see. Children's brains are still learning to interpret 3-D, so they need the largest kick of depth they can get. Kids generally don't notice the loss of image clarity.
Some adults also prefer C3DTM Standard Glasses for all applications, while other adults prefer C3DTM HD Glasses for computer graphics and video, and C3DTM Standard Glasses for print images. The C3DTM HD Glasses are recommended for general adult use and especially for video and computer graphics. The C3DTM HD Glasses produce slightly less perceived depth than the C3DTM Standard Glasses, but use different optics to keep the image clarity high, hence they are called High Definition. The perceived depth can be increased by moving further away from the image.
Any good printer should be able to print your ChromaDepthTM 3-D images and do them justice. Excellent ChromaDepthTM 3-D viewable graphics and have been printed onto plastic cups, T-Shirts, posters, comic books, brochures, buttons, plastic bandages, baseball caps, and mousepads.
If you follow the guidelines in our How to Design ChromaDepthTM 3-D images page, your image should look great with the C3DTM glasses. What you see on the computer screen as you design an image, or on your pallette as you draw it, is sometimes difficult to reproduce in print. In general, there are no particular printing requirements special to ChromaDepthTM 3-D, other than the normal requirements of high quality printing.
ChromaDepthTM 3-D images tend to have bright, saturated colors, since that leads to the greatest depth effects. Computer monitors use the primary additive colors, red, green and blue, in different combinations of brightness to create the appearance of a (nearly) full spectrum of colors. Conventional four color printing, or process printing, uses the primary subtractive colors, cyan, magenta, and yellow, plus black for contrast control (called the CMYK system), in various combinations to represent a smaller spectrum of colors. Saturated reds and saturated blues are difficult to get with CMYK, so spot colors are sometimes used to make up the difference. Spot colors are inks that provide a pure color that is difficult to get with the CMYK system. Spot colors can be used to boost the red and blue end of the ChromaDepthTM 3-D spectrum.
While we do not have any personal experience with it, we understand the the new Pantone® Hexachrome® color system is very good at representing about 90 percent of the colors available in the RGB system (this is much better than CMYK can do). The extra colors are obtained by adding green and orange to the CMYK mix, making this a six color process (hence the name). This therefore requires six printing stations, instead of the traditional four, but this is now common in the printing world.
If you have a question, send us an e-mail (c3d@chromatek.com) or contact us at:
Chromatek Inc.1-888-NOW-UC3D
770-772-9852 Phone
770-663-4726 Fax