Results tagged “examples” from Swell 3D

There is a new page on Swell 3D. The "Color anaglyph methods compared" page shows the results of many different methods of creating color 3-D images, with a minimum of retinal rivalry and ghosting, and the greatest fidelity to the desired colors.

It all started like this. On July 8, I posted my 3D Club Penguin picture. The strong primary colors in that picture, especially the red and the blue shades, gave it an uncomfortable level of "retinal rivalry" (also called Binocular rivalry). And so on July 17 I made an optimized version, using an algorithm developed by Peter Wimmer.

But it didn't stop there. Following a discussion of image optimization on Flickr.com, I have received submissions from five experts in 3D imagery from three continents, with different methods of optimizing color anaglyphs, all using my Club Penguin picture as their challenge. So now there is one page where you can compare their methods for yourself.

Counting Peter Wimmer, that's six experts whose knowledge has been put to work on the Club Penguin picture. If I wanted to put together an "All-Star" team of seasoned anaglyphic experts, I might draft these six men. And there may be more contributors on that page in the future, if any others decide to try their hand.

WIMMER'S OPTIMIZED ANAGLYPH METHOD:

NORMAL COLOR ANAGLYPH METHOD:

Peter Wimmer, of 3dtv.at, describes this modified algorithm for making color anaglyphs, which he calls "Optimized Anaglyph." Wimmer's method actually discards all of the red component from the original images, and replaces it with a sort of fake red channel derived from the green and blue components.

If you are now wondering what that means in layman's terms, I'm sorry. Those were the layman's terms. In technical terms, Wimmer's Optimized Anaglyph does this:

The Optimized anaglyph will obviously not reproduce colors as truly as a normal color anaglyph. But what you get in return is a dramatic reduction in ghost images and in "retinal rivalry," the extreme color contrast that makes your eyeballs hurt.

Wimmer gives five examples of photos so you can compare the methods. But I wanted to give his algorithm a real challenge, so I tested it on my Club Penguin 3-D screen shot, which I posted last week. Because of the highly saturated primary colors in this image, the retinal rivalry was severe. Could Wimmer's method cure the eye strain, without totally destroying the colors? Judge for yourself.

When constructing your anaglyph image, you want to prevent ghosts as much as possible. "Ghosts" are the faintly seen duplicates of the images you want the viewer to see. Ghosts are hard on the eyes and brain of the viewer, and can completely ruin the 3D effect you are trying to achieve.

These examples will show that one way to prevent ghosts is to put detailed images in the background, rather than areas of solid color.

Here's a nickel. It's not in 3D, it's just a picture of a nickel, on a white rectangle. (Depending on your monitor, it might be about actual size, as if the nickel were really stuck to your monitor.)

Now I'm going to try to bring this nickel closer to you. I'm offsetting the images 12 pixels to the left and right, to make the nickel hover about three inches in front of your monitor (assuming, of course, that you are wearing 3D glasses). I'm also making the coin a bit bigger, to enhance the illusion of closeness:

Ouch! It sort of worked, but not very well. The problem is, you can still faintly see just a little of the red image through the red lens, and a little of the blue image through the blue lens. Ideally, your glasses would completely filter out these images; but in the real world, the filtration is less than perfect. The red and blue ghosts cause your brain to fight against seeing the 3D illusion (your brain hates being tricked). You can see the hovering nickel if you work at it, but it's not fun.

Maybe the problem is the white background? Let's try a solid black rectangle instead.

Yuck, that's no better; if anything, it's worse. It turns out that these ghost images will be a problem with any solid background. What are we going to do?

The trick is to put the hovering nickel in front of a busy background, one with lots of detail. The busier, the better:

Wow, now that's 3D! The ghost images have vanished into the baroque details of the background artwork. With no ghosts to bother it, your brain happily gives in to the illusion of depth, and so you can see the hovering nickel without struggling.

The lesson is, your 3D artwork will have fewer ghosts if you put detailed things in the background. Trees are good; so are clouds and starry skies, and tapestries, and canyon walls, and engravings of dragons.