The Pulfrich Effect or How to get 3D Movies on the Cheap
The Pulfrich Effect is a pretty neat brain hack which enables you to see 2D content in pseudo-3D in some cases. Basically you delay the reception of visual information in one eye by darkening the input (wearing a sunglasses lens over one eye) and the resulting timing delay in your brain is interpreted as depth information (amazing!). This trick is useful if your significant other is like mine; they can't watch the 3D movies that are out because their brains don't processing depth in the same manner that the rest of us do. This is called "stereo-blindness". Turns out, about 4-10% of the population is like this, depending on where on the internet you get your data.
Using my sunglasses, after I popped the right eye's lens out (it easily pops back in), I was able to recreate the Pulfrich Effect during the movie "How to Train your Dragon". It was really successful in many of the scenes which had high lateral movement. I found that scenes which rotated quickly around the characters or a focus had a really pronounced 3D effect as well. Scenes which had no movement were 2D. Some scenes which had some moderately rapid panning also recreated the effect. I found that the effect was most pronounced when I covered my left eye versus the right eye.
So in the end, I don't think I'll be too put off with having to watch the 2D version of some movies with my wife, since I can always fallback on the Pulfrich Effect to make some eye popping 3D goodness when I need it, with the same content that she's watching!
Using my sunglasses, after I popped the right eye's lens out (it easily pops back in), I was able to recreate the Pulfrich Effect during the movie "How to Train your Dragon". It was really successful in many of the scenes which had high lateral movement. I found that scenes which rotated quickly around the characters or a focus had a really pronounced 3D effect as well. Scenes which had no movement were 2D. Some scenes which had some moderately rapid panning also recreated the effect. I found that the effect was most pronounced when I covered my left eye versus the right eye.
So in the end, I don't think I'll be too put off with having to watch the 2D version of some movies with my wife, since I can always fallback on the Pulfrich Effect to make some eye popping 3D goodness when I need it, with the same content that she's watching!
