RealD 3D is a digital
stereoscopic
Stereoscopy (also called stereoscopics, or stereo imaging) is a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by means of stereopsis for binocular vision. The word ''stereoscopy'' derives . Any stereoscopic image is ...
projection technology made and sold by
RealD. It is currently the most widely used technology for watching
3D films in theaters. Worldwide, RealD 3D is installed in more than 26,500 auditoriums by approximately 1,200 exhibitors in 72 countries as of June 2015.
Technology
RealD 3D cinema technology is a
polarized 3D system that uses
circularly polarized
In electrodynamics, circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave is a polarization state in which, at each point, the electromagnetic field of the wave has a constant magnitude and is rotating at a constant rate in a plane perpendicular to th ...
light to produce
stereoscopic image projection. The advantage of circular polarization over
linear polarization is that viewers are able to tilt their head and look about the theater naturally without seeing double or darkened images.
However, as with other systems, any significant head tilt will result in incorrect
parallax and prevent the brain from correctly fusing the stereoscopic images.
The high-resolution,
digital cinema grade
video projector alternately projects right-eye frames and left-eye frames, switching between them 144 times per second.
[ The projector is either a ]Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...
Digital Light Processing device or Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
's reflective LCOS ( liquid crystal on silicon). A push-pull electro-optical
Electro–optics is a branch of electrical engineering, electronic engineering, materials science, and material physics involving components, electronic devices such as lasers, laser diodes, LEDs, waveguides, etc. which operate by the pr ...
liquid crystal modulator called a ZScreen is placed immediately in front of the projector lens to alternately polarize each frame. It circularly polarizes the frames clockwise for the right eye and counter-clockwise for the left eye. The audience wears circularly polarized glasses that have oppositely polarized lenses that ensures each eye sees only its designated frame. In RealD Cinema, each frame is projected three times to reduce flicker, a system called triple flash. The source video is usually produced at 24 frames per second per eye (total 48 frames/s), which may result in subtle ghosting and stuttering on horizontal camera movements. A silver screen is used to maintain the light polarization upon reflection and to reduce reflection loss to counter some of the significant light loss due to polarization filter absorption. The result is a 3D picture that seems to extend behind and in front of the screen itself.
See also
* Polarized 3D system
* List of 3D films
* Digital 3D
* IMAX 3D
* Disney Blu-ray 3D
* Panavision 3D
*Dolby 3D
Dolby 3D (formerly known as Dolby 3D Digital Cinema) is a marketing name for a system from Dolby Laboratories, Inc. to show three-dimensional motion pictures in a digital cinema.
Technology
Dolby 3D uses a Dolby Digital Cinema projector that ...
* XpanD 3D
* MasterImage 3D
*Lenny Lipton
Leonard Lipton (May 18, 1940 – October 5, 2022) was an American author, filmmaker, lyricist and inventor. At age 19, Lipton wrote the poem that became the basis for the lyrics to the song " Puff, the Magic Dragon". He went on to write books on ...
* 4DX
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
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External links
*
Who is Lenny Lipton?
About Inventor and Chief technical officer of RealD through 2008
{{Stereoscopy, state=expanded
Motion picture film formats
Film and video technology
3D imaging
3D cinema