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 RealD Inc. is a Privately held company, privately held company known for its RealD 3D system, which is used for projecting 3D film, films in stereoscopic 3D using circularly polarized light. The company was founded in 2003 by Michael Lewis (ent ...

. It is currently the most widely used technology for watching

3D film 3D films are motion pictures made to give an illusion of three-dimensional solidity, usually with the help of special glasses worn by viewers. 3D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema and later experienced a worldwide r ...

s 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 A polarized 3D system uses polarization glasses to create the illusion of three-dimensional images by restricting the light that reaches each eye (an example of stereoscopy). To present stereoscopic images and films, two images are projected ...

that uses circularly polarized light to produce stereoscopic image projection. The advantage of circular polarization over

linear polarization In electrodynamics, linear polarization or plane polarization of electromagnetic radiation is a confinement of the electric field vector or magnetic field vector to a given plane along the direction of propagation. The term ''linear polarizati ...

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 Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different sightline, lines of sight and is measured by the angle or half-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to perspective (graphica ...

and prevent the brain from correctly fusing the stereoscopic images. The high-resolution,

digital cinema Digital cinema is the digital technology used within the film industry to distribute or project motion pictures as opposed to the historical use of reels of motion picture film, such as 35 mm film. Whereas film reels have to be shipped to mo ...

grade

video projector A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc l ...

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 multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...

Digital Light Processing device or

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

's reflective LCOS (

liquid crystal on silicon Liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS or LCOS) is a miniaturized reflective active-matrix liquid-crystal display or "microdisplay" using a liquid crystal layer on top of a silicon backplane. It is also known as a spatial light modulator. LCoS initia ...

). A push-pull electro-optical

liquid crystal Liquid crystal (LC) is a state of matter whose properties are between those of conventional liquids and those of solid crystals. For example, a liquid crystal can flow like a liquid, but its molecules may be oriented in a common direction as i ...

modulator called a

ZScreen ZScreen is a push-pull electro-optical liquid crystal modulator that is placed immediately in front of the projector lens or computer screen to alternately polarize the light from each video frame. It circularly polarizes the frames clockwise for ...

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 A silver screen, also known as a silver lenticular screen, is a type of projection screen that was popular in the early years of the motion picture industry and passed into popular usage as a metonym for the cinema industry. The term silver scr ...

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 pictures that seems to extend behind and in front of the screen itself.

References

External links

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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

Technology

See also

References

Further reading

External links