Can 3D Glasses Harm Your Eyes?

    3D glasses are thought to be a safe way to view 3D entertainment but there are some reports of people experiencing some negative side effects from wearing them.

    An interesting question from a staff member today that was asked... "If my child wears 3D glasses all the time, can it harm their eyes?" Answer - No. 3D glasses are made with special lenses (polarized) to design to present different images to the right and left eye. The 'splitting' effect only occurs in the very special environment of a movie theatre. Out in the real world 3D glasses only just act like slightly tinted glasses. Some effect (not 3D but screen blackening) may be seen from polarized lenses if you look at a LCD display.

    Some people have reported feeling nauseous while wearing 3D glasses and other people have complained of headaches and general unpleasantness. This could be because of the content of what is being viewed itself rather than the glasses as 3D TV and films tend to be high paced and quite unsettling to watch.

Do you know the first popular 3D glasses?

Now 3D glasses can be seen everywhere. Although there are many different kinds of 3D glasses, they all work to achieve the same end result. In a nutshell, they are essentially trying to trick your brain into seeing a 2 dimensional image projected by a TV set or cinema screen as a 3 dimensional image.

Most people can remember the first 3D glasses from years ago that were designed to work with anaglyph color filtering. These glasses were usually made out of cardboard with one red lens and one cyan lens; although before 1970 red and green lenses were used.

Anaglyph color filtering was invented in 1853 by Wilhelm Rollmann. The red and cyan anaglyph 3D glasses work by making each eye see a different image. The brain then makes these two images blend together, and the result of this is a 3D image effect.

Theses glasses enjoyed a fair amount of popularity in the past because of the fact that they were the cheapest ones available to view 3D entertainment; however it wasn’t long until people started looking around for new, more effective ways to see in 3D.

See 3D film with 3D glasses

With the onset of 3D TV it is likely that we will all put on a pair of 3D glasses in the near future, but what do they do and why do we have to wear them to watch 3D TV?

There are many different types of 3D glasses. The most common 3D glasses (the ones with red and blue lenses) produce a 3-dimensional effect through a process known as anaglyph color filtering. There are various other types of 3D glasses, but they all work in the same manner; by tricking the brain into seeing a 3-dimensional image from a 2-dimensional source.

The reason you need to wear glasses to watch 3D is that a separate image needs to be sent to each eye, with the brain combining the two images into a single image with 3D characteristics. In other words, the 3D process actually fools your brain into thinking it is seeing a 3D image, so it creates one for you