• Question: how does 3d glasses work

    Asked by 466kvna44 to Caoimhe, Colin, David, Katie, Lisa on 12 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: David Taylor

      David Taylor answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      There are different kinds of 3D glasses but they all work on the same idea: the reason you can see things in 3D is because you have 2 eyes…each eye sees the world from a slightly different place, and the brain puts the 2 images from the 2 eyes together to make a 3D picture. In the cinema they can do this by giving you glasses which are polarised, so each eye gets to see different light which is polarised in a different way, and the brain does the rest!
      In my work I sometimes make 3D pictures of the things I see down a microscope.

    • Photo: Katie Mahon

      Katie Mahon answered on 12 Nov 2014:

      If you look at older 3D glasses, it’s easier to explain the idea. Now the glasses are just shaded like sunglasses. But they used to have one red lens and one blue lens. The image on the screen would be there twice, in red and in blue, one beside the other. And the images would be very slightly different. You’d hardly notice the difference.

      Then as you look through the glasses, your left eye is looking through the red lens & doesn’t see the red image, it only sees blue. And your right eye looking through the blue lens can only see the red image. Then without you even noticing, your brain is tricked into thinking it’s seeing all around a 3D object instead of a flat picture.

      A picture of the red & blue glasses:
      http://www.3d-brillen-shop.de/3d-glasses-red-cyan

      A 3D image, seen without the glasses:
      http://fineartamerica.com/featured/neytiri-and-jake-sully–use-red-cyan-3d-glasses-brian-wallace.html

    • Photo: Colin Keogh

      Colin Keogh answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Its a trick between your eyes and brain. Katie & Davids answers explain it really well.

    • Photo: Caoimhe O'Neill

      Caoimhe O'Neill answered on 21 Nov 2014:

      Good answer @Katie

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