FILMS IN THREE DIMENSIONS

Southland Times, Issue 24547, 23 September 1941, Page 3

FILMS IN THREE DIMENSIONS

Russian Scientist’s Invention That films of three dimensions, the possible development of which was referred to by Mr H. C. Olsqn, manager of the State Theatre, Invercargill, in an interview published in The Southland Times on Saturday, are now something more than a picture producer’s dream is suggested by a report from Moscow that a Russian scientist, S. Ivanov, after long study and research has produced an invention that may have solved the problem. The invention is based partly on the principle of the stereoscope, which will be familiar to most people. Two identical pictures are used and when they are viewed through the stereoscope they not only appear as one, but all the details of the picture stand out much more clearly, and an illusion of depth is obtained. In other words the scene appears not as the camera has reproduced it, but more nearly as the person who took the photograph saw it. Obviously, however, the principle of the common stereoscope is not sufficient for the motion picture, screen, since the illusion of depth has to be conveyed not to one person but to many persons simultaneously. Ivanov solved this problem by throwing his pictures on an ordinary white screen in front of which 30,000 slender, wires were strung to form a sort of gigantic harp. The pictures for right and left eye were thrown consecutively on the screen in rapid succession and scenes of stereoscopic effect were produced. USE OF TWO MIRRORS Stereoscopic films can be taken by any camera with any lens by using a small mirror arrangement that makes possible the filming of two images simultaneously. Then the stereoscopic film, each still of which is divided into two (for the left and right eye), can be thrown on the screen by any movie projector with two mirrors. . Mr Olsen, who has made a special study of the problem of films of three dimensions, said that this report from Moscow suggested a nearer approach to a solution of the problem than any of the many reports of similar experiments which he had read. The principle of the stereoscope had been used in previous experiments, but experiments with specially constructed screens had so far not proved successful. However, whether this invention of the Russian scientist would prove a practicable proposition for the ordinary cinema remained to be seen.