Eyewear system, apparatus and method for stereoscopically viewing motion pictures

A method for enabling a user to view moving pictures made for display on conventional display screens with no enhancement to produce the illusion of depth, as three dimensional pictures comprising the steps of:

• providing a the motion picture screen displaying visual material created by a single camera or video recorder, the visual material being a single image or series of images that is viewable by a user and not distorted when viewed without the eyewear apparatus;
• providing an eyewear apparatus comprising a left and right lens, the left and right lens comprising a single layer of refractory material, each mounted in a suitable structure for convenience of a viewer, at least one of which said lenses utilizes a prismatic lens construction which shifts the wearers line of sight laterally outwardly by a select degree from the normal convergent alignment automatically assumed by the eyes when viewing the display screen, causing the viewer to perceive an image offset laterally from that which would ordinarily be seen by that eye, causing the two eyes to experience as greater than normal offset of the two images which would ordinarily be associated with the viewing of objects at a considerably greater distance from the viewer than the visual display screen,
• and causing the viewer to perceive the appearance that the visual objects displayed on the screen are at a considerably greater distance from the viewer than the actual distance to the screen, thus causing the viewer to perceive the a single image with depth or a third dimension in the viewed scene.

An eyewear apparatus for modified viewing of ordinary television broadcasts, display of video recordings and other motion picture visual material displayed on a flat screen as two dimensional visual material having two offset images created so as to produce the impression of depth, or three dimensional viewing, the eyewear apparatus comprising:

• a left and right lens, the left and right lens comprising a refractory material, each mounted in a suitable structure for convenience of a viewer, one or both of which said lenses utilizes a prismatic lens construction which shifts the wearers line of sight laterally outwardly by a select degree from the normal convergent alignment automatically assumed by the eyes when viewing the display screen, causing the viewer to perceive an image offset laterally from that which would ordinarily be seen by that eye, causing the two eyes to experience as greater than normal offset of the two images which would ordinarily be associated with the viewing of objects at a considerably greater distance from the viewer than the visual display screen, thus causing the viewer to perceive the illusion not of two laterally displaced images, but of a single image with depth;
• wherein the prismatic lens construction of either or both lenses comprises a support member consisting of an optically clear structural support to which is affixed a centrally located thin film containing a Fresnel lens pattern, the Fresnel lens pattern having a height and a width each ranging from 0.5 to 0.75 inches, effectively duplicating the function of a simple prismatic lens.