This invention discloses a 3-D Phenomenoscope through which any 2-dimensional motion picture with passages of horizontal screen movement can be viewed with a 3-dimensional visual effect. The 3-dimensional visual effect is produced by the 3-D Phenomenoscope regardless of whether the motion picture was shot on regular or digital film; regardless of whether the presentation media is film, digital film, VCR tape, or DVD, and; regardless of whether the motion picture is viewed in the movie theater, home TV, Cable TV, or on a PC monitor. No special processing during production or showing of a motion picture is required to achieve the visual effect of the 3-D Phenomenoscope—so no new constraints are placed on the owner, producer, distributor, or projectionist in creating, distributing or displaying motion pictures. The 3-D Phenomenoscope are completely self-contained computer-actuated battery-powered spectacles or glasses that a viewer wears when watching a motion picture. When the 3-D Phenomenoscope glasses are activated the viewer will see lateral motion in a motion picture in 3-dimensions. When the 3-D Phenomenoscope is not activated or the glasses are turned off, or if the viewer is not wearing the 3-D Phenomenoscope glasses, then the viewer will see the motion picture unchanged and without any special effects. The preferred embodiment of the invention presents a method and system for a 3-D Phenomenoscope to view 3-dimensional special effects in motion pictures, and disclose a system by which ordinary 2-dimensional motion pictures can be viewed as a 3-dimensionsal experience. The 3-D Phenomenoscope achieves this by taking advantage of the well-known Pulfrich effect, by which passages of lateral motion of an ordinary motion picture will appear to the viewer in 3-Dimensions if the motion picture is viewed through right and left lenses that are configured with a clear lens and a light-reducing or darker lens. Ordinary eyeglasses are configured with: (a) Right and left lenses for which the degree of clarity or darkening of the lens can be individually controlled (b) Digital photo sensors (a digital camera) that can capture the viewed motion picture as successive images and convert the captured frames to digital images for processing (c) Computer processor to process the successive images and identify lateral motion synchronization events, and (d) Ability to provide individual control for the light-reduction or darkening of the right or left lens based on the identified synchronization events. In this way, the 3-D Phenomenoscope provides a fully self-contained apparatus that allow any motion picture to be viewed with the visual effect of 3-dimensions.
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