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3D Technology (Two Minutes to Read)

2/1/2016

 
Movies that are expected to be large box office hits often come with a 3D version of the movie especially if it’s an action adventure. I find it kind of funny that young people think 3D technology is new when the 1950’s were considered the 3D decade. I’m sure you can envision pictures you’ve seen of movie audiences in the 50’s wearing those funny looking 3D glasses.

Movie studios back in the 1950’s who were filming 3D movies didn’t have the amazing technology that’s available today. They were restricted to what they could do with the actual film tape whereas today they use digital film and computers to create the 3D effect. Most of the 3D affect back then was due directly to the glasses the audience wore which pulled the screen closer to them as if they were wearing binoculars.

Today movie studios can use technology which allows them to take the same scene and put a couple of layers of the same scene on top of it. So when someone wears 3D glasses it has a rich depth to it where it looks completely natural. It also makes images appear within our grasps which is closer than audiences were able to see it in the 50's.

What most people don’t know is the first 3D movie was the “The Power of Love” and it was produced in 1922. It took close to thirty years to get the idea of 3D movies to take off. Ever since the 50’s the popularity of 3D movies has come and gone. I’m certainly not saying it’s a fad this time but history is what it is.

Just in case you didn’t know the three dimensions (3D), are height, width, and depth. I’m not a huge art fan but the artists who paint are experts at the use of 3D. Think about how amazing it is for them to take a flat canvas and layer dimensions on it to where you and I can tell which objects are closer or further away. So even though artists for thousands of years didn’t call what they did three dimensional they were making it happen never the less. Their goal was to create a painting that looked real so 3D was a necessary aspect of it.

Scientists believe there are many more dimensions beyond the three you and I know. We are born with 3D vision (a.k.a. binocular vision) for our protection. Binocular vision allows us to determine which objects are closer to us. If we didn’t have depth perception we’d fall all over the place and we certainly couldn’t drive.

A good example of the need for depth perception is in playing catch with a baseball. We must be able to see a baseball coming towards us (not just how wide and tall the baseball is) but the depth/distance as well. The speed at which the baseball is travelling is a fourth dimension according to scientist. The baseball travelling towards us is an example of horizontal speed so knowing the rate of something going up or something falling down are also considered dimensions. We might not understand all of these dimensions but they still exist.

Young people like to believe they’re on the cutting edge of everything and that we don’t have a clue. I guess we shouldn’t tell them that 3D has been around since the beginning of time and that mankind has been applying it through art for thousands of years. I guess we shouldn’t tell them the first film made for 3D viewing was in 1922 and that movie theaters were showing a lot of 3D movies in the 1950’s. Then again, maybe we should tell these young whipper snappers! I can use these words now that I’m old enough to be a grandfather.

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    Author: John Mann

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