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Red-Cyan, Color Code, Trioscopics… Angalyph is Anaglyph!

Submitted by Clyde DeSouza on Sunday, 20 September 20093 Comments
Anaglyph 3D glasses for DVD and Blue Ray Home Cinema

Anaglyph 3D glasses for DVD and Blue Ray Home Cinema

At the recent 3D Entertainment Summit, there were “methods” of 3D movie delivery for the Homes being demonstrated. There is no denying that Anaglyph, or more commonly known as red-blue 3D, is a popular and cost effective method of presenting and viewing stereoscopic 3D content from DVD, Computer hard drive, via satellite broadcast or Blue Ray discs.

Now to the best of our knowledge , Red-Cyan filters re-produce the nearest “full-color” reproduction of a scene, as opposed to red-blue glasses. (Cyan filters are preferred to the more color spectrum limiting blue filters). Also to the best of our knowledge, this method of 3D delivery is patent free and common knowledge.

So after reading this article on an anaglyph technology using Magenta-Green filters, as reported in Variety, it prompted us to shed some light (in a non authoritative manner) on the subject of Anaglyph and it’s use in the reproduction of as-perfect-as possible stereoscopic 3D content.

To us anaglyph is anaglyph, and we don’t have to dress it up in different “colors” to make it more exciting or proper or acceptable.
Bad anaglyph is the result of Retinal rivalry, Color sub-sampling artifacts and high contrast scenes. These can all be controlled and some bad effects virtually eliminated.
Creating good anaglyphs is an art as much as it is a science, and should be done on a scene by scene basis. See these Links for examples of what you NEED to do to get good anaglyphs:
http://www.brightland.com/Akumira/Akumira.htm
http://3dtv.at/Knowhow/AnaglyphComparison_en.aspx

Bottom line is, swapping complementary colors such as yellow-blue or green-magenta isn’t the answer. Use Red-cyan for Anaglyph which is copyright free, and instead OPTIMIZE your scenes to remove retinal rivalry, edge artifacts (also called video encoder embossed effects) and you will have good anaglyphs.
No arguments hold water when saying that red-cyan is not optimal for reproducing skin tones, etc etc. It’s just people wanting to “patent” something.
These are rather direct statements and will no doubt, be either brushed aside by people with other views or vested interests… or we hope that they will take time to shed some light as to why these “other” methods of Anaglyph delivery are more superior, if indeed they are.
In any comparisons, we would like to see the same anaglyph done using Optimized encoding as detailed in the links above, and of different scenes. Example, if showing a scene with Santa-clause and superman, to show how red-cyan fails, then there should also be scenes, with meadows filled with sun-flowers and lush green lawns, and Barney!
(all copyrights of any trademark names used in this article are fully acknowledged as belonging to their respective owners)

  • stevenbradford

    You can do this experiment now, with You Tube's 3D tag. It provides a pull down menu for several different types of viewing including anaglyphs.

  • Tetsu Deinonychus

    (I know this is an old post, but…)

    I’m an aspiring CG artist that likes to render his images in anaglyphic 3D, and lately I’ve been experimenting with rendering the same image in the classic Red/Cyan combo I grew up with and the “Trioscopics” Green/Magenta combo that came with the Coraline DVD.

    From what I’ve found you’re mostly right. Anaglyph is Anaglyph (You can even wear one type of glasses backwards and it will work for the other format).

    But, I will say that some colors look better in one combination than another. For example Orange comes out brighter in G/M than R/C, and there is a wider range of blue. But, other colors such as green seem to look better with the classic R/C. And, I’m sure the same thing applies to Yellow/Blue (I don’t have the glasses for that).

    I guess I’m saying that the classic combination works fine, but there’s nothing wrong with one of the new combinations if it fits your product’s color palette better. Coraline for example, had alot of blue and purple so I understand why the makers of that film went with Green/Magenta.

    Though, I use alot of greens, so the classic Red/Cyan seems to be the best for my own work anyway.

  • Tetsu Deinonychus

    (I know this is an old post, but…)

    I'm an aspiring CG artist that likes to render his images in anaglyphic 3D, and lately I've been experimenting with rendering the same image in the classic Red/Cyan combo I grew up with and the “Trioscopics” Green/Magenta combo that came with the Coraline DVD.

    From what I've found you're mostly right. Anaglyph is Anaglyph (You can even wear one type of glasses backwards and it will work for the other format).

    But, I will say that some colors look better in one combination than another. For example Orange comes out brighter in G/M than R/C, and there is a wider range of blue. But, other colors such as green seem to look better with the classic R/C. And, I'm sure the same thing applies to Yellow/Blue (I don't have the glasses for that).

    I guess I'm saying that the classic combination works fine, but there's nothing wrong with one of the new combinations if it fits your product's color palette better. Coraline for example, had alot of blue and purple so I understand why the makers of that film went with Green/Magenta.

    Though, I use alot of greens, so the classic Red/Cyan seems to be the best for my own work anyway.

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