Over time, a number of attempts have been made to offer users the best possible 3D images. One of these has emerged relatively recently - it works on a similar principle to anaglyph, but offers a higher quality colour rendering. Special glasses are needed.
Share:The technology used is called ColorCode 3D, and if we were to summarize its principle in a short explanation, it would be something like this: ColorCode 3D uses glasses with two different coloured transparencies, one blue and one yellow (created as a combination of green and red). The images are then created in a similar way to anaglyph - the blue component for the view from one side is mixed with the red-green component for the view from the other side.
The author of ColorCode 3D has patented his technology - and the patent includes a number of improvements. The creation of the images is therefore more complicated than indicated above; however, the basic principle remains.
We decided to test the ColorCode 3D technique. We looked at a number of images and did some further experiments using the graphic editor. Our impression of the technique was very good.
Thanks to the choice of the colours of the glasses and some mathematical algorithms used, the images in ColorCode 3D retain true colours. In fact, the colours are only slightly distorted through the yellow transparency, while the dark blue transparency gives the subjective impression that it lets through mainly the luminance component.
The 3D effect of the images is also very good. It should be noted here, however, that even for anaglyph there are various methods for improving the 3D perception - for example, for cases where larger areas of some 'inappropriate' colours need to be shown. However, the advantage of ColorCode 3D is that these methods are already part of the standard.
In addition to the above mentioned advantages, ColorCode 3D has one significant disadvantage: It is a very little used technology. If you create images in ColorCode 3D and put them on the web, few people will be able to see them. While anaglyph glasses are fairly widely available around the world and many people have them at home, it's worse with ColorCode 3D glasses.
By the way - the new version of our software supports blue-yellow anaglyphs.
And finally, a link to the ColorCode 3D website. There you will find not only information about this technology, but also a number of image galleries.
3DJournal, April 2004
