Generally, when moviegoers think of 3D movies, they think of the glasses that are needed to see the film correctly. However, with new technology, this soon may not be the case.
The way 3D movies work is that two films are actually being projected, one for the left eye and one for the right. The glasses allow each specific film to go into each eye, so when looking at a 3D movie without the glasses, it looks like two different films, because it is.
There have been other methods to create glasses-less 3D movies that are available now, but most are expensive and require redesigning a theater. One system has a specific filter in front of the screen, but the projector is behind the screen, instead of behind the audience. If a theater wanted to use this option, it would have to purchase new equipment as well as move the projector. However, this technology is used on smaller screens now – like the HTC Evo 3D Android phone and some gaming consoles.
With this new system created by researchers in South Korea, the projector would still sit behind the audience, like any other movie. A filter in front of the projector would be used to polarize the lights, and a filter in front of the screen would block parts of the film – like “Venetian blinds,” CNN explained, so each eye would be seeing the same movie at two different angles, creating the 3D image without the extra glasses.
This means theaters, or other portable or adaptable screens, like inflatable movie screens, would not need to redesign the equipment and could screen 3D films more easily. At the same time, this new technology does have more tweaking and improvements to be made. Regardless, this step is still moving film viewing in the right direction.