-The anaglyph 3-D method is a widely used technique for presenting stereoscopic 3-D images. Its primary advantage is that it will work on any full-color display (LCDs, plasmas, and even prints) and only requires that the user view the anaglyph image using a pair of anaglyph 3-D glasses with usually one lens tinted red and the other lens tinted cyan (blue plus green). A common imagequality problem of anaglyph 3-D images is high levels of cross-talk -the incomplete isolation of the left and right image channels such that each eye sees a "ghost" of the opposite perspective view. An anaglyph cross-talk simulation model has been developed which allows the amount of anaglyph crosstalk to be estimated based on the spectral characteristics of the anaglyph glasses and the display. The model is validated using a visual cross-talk ranking test which indicates good agreement. The model is then used to consider two scenarios for the reduction of cross-talk in anaglyph systems and finds that a considerable reduction is likely to be achieved by using spectrally pure displays. The study also finds that the 3-D performance of commercial anaglyph glasses can be significantly better than handmade anaglyph glasses.Keywords -Stereoscopic, 3-D, cross-talk, ghosting, leakage, anaglyph. DOI # 10.1889/JSID20.6.304
IntroductionThe anaglyph 3-D display technique dates back to 1853 when it was developed by William Rollman. 1 The technique involves the presentation of the left and right perspective images in complementary color channels of the displayusually with the left perspective image stored in the red color channel and the right perspective image in the blue and green color channels. To see the anaglyph 3-D image, the observer wears a pair of glasses fitted with color filters in front of each eye -usually red for the left eye and cyan (blue plus green) for the right eye. The color filters act to separate the components of the presented anaglyph 3-D image so that the left perspective image is only seen by the left eye, and the right perspective image is only seen by the right eye, and hence the observer can see a stereoscopic 3-D image. Anaglyph 3-D has several limitations in terms of the quality of the presented 3-D images -particularly the inability to produce accurate full-color 3-D images (since color is used as the separation or multiplexing technique), binocular rivalry 2,3 (sometimes known as retinal rivalry) (because each eye sees a different color), and often the presence of high levels of cross-talk (also known as crosstalk or cross talk). 4 Despite the availability of stereoscopic 3-D display technologies which offer much higher-quality 3-D presentation (e.g., polarized and active shutter glasses), anaglyph continues to be used today in a wide range of applications because it will work with any full-color display and the glasses are very cheap and commonly available, whereas polarized and active shutter 3-D methods require specialized equipment which may not be available to the user. The anaglyph 3-D technique is al...