3D - 2

Why do we use red and cyan colors for 3D glasses? Why not other colors?

Need this for my little sisters science fair project. Anyone have any ideas why?

Public Comments

1. because this colour has frequency & wave lengths are highest & lowest
2. This site has a good explanation: http://www.3dglassesonline.com/how-do-3d-glasses-work/ Here's what it says: 1. You see images in 3D when the images are spaced slightly apart. 2. This is done normally because the eyes are separated by about 2 inches, so the light enters them at different angles. The brain puts these images back together to get a 3D image. 3. Binoculars mimic this natural phenomenon by having different colored filters. That alters the wavelength of the light entering each eye, so it appears 3D. 4. Cyan and red were used because that's how movies were filmed. The screen has two images, placed slightly apart: one in red and the other in cyan. With the filters of the same colors, only one image enters each eye - mimicking the different angle effect of the separation of your eyes. Thus, you see in 3D. Ultimately, it looks like these two colors were used for convention. However, the guy above is right: red and cyan are separated about as far apart on the spectrum of visible light as you can get. This makes it easier to filter out the colors in a discriminate way.
3. Theoretically, ANY complementary colors could be used. Why red and cyan? Red is at the lower end of the spectrum. Red images are very "soft" (unsharp) when compared to red/blue, so it's better to leave the red by itself - not mixing it with anything else. Cyan is a combination between green and blue. When you create the stereo pair from two images, from the left image you subtract the green and the blue, so you end up with red. On the right image you subtract the red, so you end up with the mix of blue/green, which is cyan. Why is red preferred on the left side, and not the right? First, because that's a standard accepted a long time ago. Second, because the left eye communicates mostly with the right hemisphere, which is more prone to process "emotions" rather than hard facts - and "red" means "warm".