FRENCH INVENTION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 160, 22 June 1935, Page 14

FRENCH INVENTION

Spectacles to View Films

THREE-DIMENSIONAL IDEA

Extending the idea of the old-fash-ioued stereoscope, Louis Lumiere, French pioneer in development of the motion picture camera, claims to have finally perfected a three-dimensional film.

Revolutionary effects or depth and relief have been obtained by M. Lumiere, according to those privileged to see the “preview” of his invention, which was presented to the French Academy of Sciences recently. Commercial application of the device is said to be perfectly possible.

The essence of M. Lumiere’s discovery is simply a pair of coloured spectacles. Indeed, the new three-dimen-sional movies are less an invention than a perfection of the old stereoscope in common use since 1855! The two little coloured windows mounted on a sliding rule constituted the simple form of stereoscope. Experiments have been made with motion pictures, whereby two images—one red and one green—were projected simultaneously on the screen. The spectators utilised spectacles having one green and one red lens, which succeeded in giving a stereoscopic effect of depth. These experiments, however, were not fully successful. The reason, according to M. Lumiere, is not that the audience objected to wearing glasses, but that the red and green lenses employed were crude and unsatisfactory affairs. Green light, he explains, lingers longer on the retina than red, thus producing an uncomfortable and unnatural effect.

This difficulty has now been overcome by M. Lumiere, for his glasses are no longer red and green. One lens is bluish in colour and the other yellowish.

Two years of constant research, M. Lumiere declares, were necessary to find these two complementary tones which “synchronize” the red and green images. One of them lets through only the green, red, violet, indigo and blue, while the other admits red, orange, yellow and green. Since these colours combine to form the spectrum of sunlight, the apparent result is a natural white light.

Aftter beginning by using two separato cameras to take the films used lit his new system, M. Lumiere perfected a camera with a double set of lenses. A projector with a double lens

is likewise used. This part of the picture presents little difficulty, but M

Lumiere admits that later progress may bo necessary to eliminate the use of spectacles. Meanwhile, ho feels that a successful intermediate stage has now been reached.

To demonstrate his invention before the Academy of Science here, M. Lumiere presented a three-dimensional film showing the entry of a train into a railway station. It was entitled “The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat”—the

same subject and scene of his first motion picture film, made in JBUS.