The ChromaDepthTM 3-D process is the first new 3D display technique to be developed in thirty years. ChromaDepthTM 3-D was invented by US researcher Richard Steenblik after he noticed that the bright colors on the screen of a TEMPESTTM video game seemed to lie in different depth planes. This triggered a quest to make this effect, known as chromostereoscopy, into a practical method for producing 3D images. In the course of eight years of after-hours experimentation Mr. Steenblik created plastic prisms, glass double prisms, Fresnel prisms, and liquid optics using glycerin and Chinese cinnamon oil held in wedge-shaped glass cells. These liquid glasses worked extremely well, but were not suited for mass production. Mr. Steenblik and his business partner, Dr. Frederick Lauter, were just about to give up when a new optical development came to their attention. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) had developed binary optics; a way of making very thin diffractive optics that had the efficiency of refractive optics. It was instantly clear that binary optics provided the answer.
Optical devices use reflection, refraction, or diffraction to move light around. Optics which use refraction, such as lenses, are usually designed to reduce diffraction. Optics which use diffraction, such as holograms, usually don't use refraction. The binary optics in the ChromaDepthTM 3-D glasses combine refraction and diffraction to make thin optics that act like thick glass prisms. After two years of development work with MIT the ChromaDepthTM 3-D production problem was solved.
The ChromaDepthTM 3-D glasses were first used commercially in June, 1992, at a laser show presented at the American Museum of Natural History Hayden Planetarium in New York City. ChromaDepthTM 3-D glasses are currently being used at a number of laser shows in the United States and Canada as well as by a wide variety of other clients.