Anaglyph Methods Comparison

This page compares several anaglyph methods. It gives the formulas to calculate the anaglyph's RGB values r_a, g_a and b_a from the RGB values of the original left (r₁, g₁, b₁) and right images (r₂, g₂, b₂). The formulas must be applied for each pixel.

Click on the sample images to enlarge them.

True Anaglyphs

Dark image
No color reproduction
Little ghosting

Gray Anaglyphs

No color reproduction
More ghosting than true anaglyphs

Color Anaglyphs

Partial color reproduction
Retinal rivalry

Half Color Anaglyphs

Partial color reproduction (but not as good as color anaglyphs)
Less retinal rivalry than color anaglyphs

Optimized Anaglyphs

In addition, we applied a gamma correction (gamma value 1.5) to brighten up final red channel r_a. Stereoscopic Player implements a further improved algorithm which partially maps the red channels to green and blue before applying the above formula.

Partial color reproduction (but not of red shades)
Almost no retinal rivalry

When we talk about retinal rivalry, we just mean the retinal rivalry caused by brightness differences of colored objects. Of course there is an additional form of retinal rivalry, independently of the anaglyph method used: retinal rivalry caused by the different color channels perceived by left and right eye.

Here is another sample image.

Color Anaglyph

Half Color Anaglyph

Optimized Anaglyph

And another few sample images...