2. Stereoscopic 3D images are marvelous to behold when they are done well which makes them unmatchable as a means by which to display the reality of things on a flat screen.

Our contention that 3D's depth presentation is unmatchable for great imaging is proven by the military's universal use of 3D for many, many years in their extremely critical aerial reconnaissance missions. Even on NASA's website, we are presented with anaglyph 3D images of objects in distant space as well as some of the surface of the moon, Mars and even 3D images of our sun!

3D imaging is truly a wonder to behold but bear in mind that it is a TOTAL ILLUSION!

The depth found within 3d images is an illusory trick that is played upon the brain's visual cortex through the eyes. So called 3D images create an illusory simulation of unlimited depth being present within a physically flat screen as well as coming out from it. This illusion of in & out of screen depth  occurs because of a process called Stereopsis that goes on within the brain. This mental process works to make us consciously perceive 2 slightly offset images (of a particular place / event) that have been simultaneously presented through our eyes into our brain, as being one 3 dimensional image. 

In the stereoscopic anaglyph format, through color filtration by the red and cyan (blue) lenses, one image goes through one eye and the other goes through the other and together they converge within the brain's visual cortex to be perceived there as only one image having 3 dimensional depth. With the Piku - Piku images embedded  here from START3D,  as the image twitches or wiggles back and forth on the screen, a similar illusion occurs as 11 images are timed just right in an animation which fools the brain into seeing them in 3D. However, the Piku - Piku process can only be used for photos. It is not available for stereoscopic 3D videos where the anaglyph glasses are still required.

These kinds of 3D images in the past were captured by using a single lens camera, taking 1 photo and then another one about 2.5  inches apart from the first one (horizontally) of the exact same scene very quickly after it. But now with the advent of the Fujifilm 3D camera, the 2 images can be simultaneously captured by this camera's two lenses  because they are automatically synchronized to shutter at exactly the same time. The distance apart for its two lenses (of 2.5 inches on the face of the camera) is the same as the human eyes distance apart from one another within the human skull.

There are other stereoscopic 3D formats and equipment and their appropriate glasses of other colors than red - cyan but they cannot be interchanged with the red-cyan anaglyph format. Neither can the very expensive 3D movie display equipment be interchanged with the anaglyph format because it requires more expensive polarized shutter-glasses for viewing its high quality 3D images. So you can't use the glasses that you brought home from the movies or that come with the new 3D TV's to view anaglyph format images on your computer.

Below, (if you view this photo without red-cyan colored glasses) is an example of this double colored and offset image effect on your flat computer screen. This particular photo was taken when I (on the left) and Al (my e-brother from God sent to work with me to build websites) on the right were inspecting our computer screen at the exciting moment when we finally got our inexpensive little 3D Minoru web-cam to perfectly focus in upon us.

Eureka! By Jove old man, I think we've got it!

For you to view this image in 3D, you will of course need to wear a pair of red-cyan colored lens glasses (similar to those which we are wearing in the photo above to see ourselves in 3D on our computer screen).  We will be happy to ship some of these glasses to you (see comment on glasses in the left margin) as you will need them to get the most out of this blog and you will also  need them any place else on the internet that displays stereoscopic anaglyph images. This red-cyan (blue), color-filtered, stereoscopic anaglyph format is the format that has become most prevalent for inexpensive 3D on the internet and therefore most prevalent for 3D images that are being uploaded onto the internet.

The better quality professional 3D video cameras which use different polarizations instead of different colors to separate images to the brain start at a cost of over $20,000 each!

Such equipment is well beyond the range of affordability of most amateurs like ourselves. They are primarily used by professionals and/or the very well-to-do to make their 3D movies and/or videos for their new, expensive 3D LCD televisions which project excellent 3D images. Less expensive 3d camcorders have come out for the 3D LCD TV's and for computers with expensive 3D gaming screens but they require expensive glasses also, so they still won't be desirable for the average person using the  internet.


Anaglyph stereoscopic 3D images on the other hand, can be viewed on any screen on any device that will project their double images. This includes most all computers and tablets today including the new 3D LCD screened computers and TV's (but of course they will not project the superior quality of the polarized images for which their screens were specially designed ad can only be viewed with expensive glasses).

Yet if you observe the quality on your computer screen of the 3D anaglyph photo above, you will see that when one is taken correctly (as this one was), even on an ultra-inexpensive camera like this $50 Minoru webcam, your computer will allow it to turn out to be darn decent 3D!

In our opinion, the ability to now view 3D images on computer screens without the need for any glasses is really a great boon for the advancement of the 3D anaglyph format.

An image like the one above can now  be entered and Piku - Piku processed on the START3D.com website for 3D viewing in two different ways. First, a left eye and a right eye JPEG image may be entered right on their website's photo loader for them to use to create their Piku - Piku image. Or second,  you may download the MPO images right from the Fujifilm camera or its memory card into your computer and then upload them from there onto START3D.com to be Piku- Piku processed.

Once a photo is Piku - Piku processed (each one takes about 3 minutes) and put into an album, START3D gives you its embed code which can then be placed into a blog's or into a website's HTML code so that the 3D image can be viewed there without any glasses (as you have been doing here on this blog). The twitching of the image is necessary to the illusion of depth that it induces because it is very rapidly entering 11 images into your eyes!

It is not perfect 3D but we feel that it is decent enough to entice our viewers to want to see more of them. We then hope that our viewers might want to go on and view our matching anaglyph format 3D photos (with the required red-cyan glasses) so that they can expand them into full screen mode for best 3D viewing.

Please proceed to the May #3 post linked in our left margin Archive.