X-Nico

4 unusual facts about Pulfrich effect


Orb-3D

The game is noteworthy for employing the Pulfrich effect, an optical trick created with the use of "3-D" glasses (of which one lens is clear and the other tinted) that come with the game.

Pulfrich effect

So did Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D for the Super Nintendo, using constantly scrolling backgrounds to cause the effect.

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The effect was also used well throughout the whole 1993 Doctor Who charity special Dimensions in Time and in dream sequences of the 1997 3rd Rock from the Sun two-part season 2 finale Nightmare on Dick Street.

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The videogame Orb-3D for the Nintendo Entertainment System used the effect (by having the player's ship always moving) and came packed with a pair of glasses.


Carl Pulfrich

Carl Pulfrich (September 24, 1858, Burscheid, Rhine Province – August 12, 1927) was a German physicist, noted for advancements in optics made as a researcher for the Carl Zeiss company in Jena around 1880, and for documenting the Pulfrich effect, a psycho-optical phenomenon that can be used to create a type of 3-D visual effect.


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