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Lentils:     

Lentil Soup Without The Vinegar

Lenticular Lenses are probably best known by those wiggle post cards that look like a 3d image, but they are simply flat.

How does that work: Lenticular Lenses are usually manufactured as a sheet of plastic screen that is glued on a piece of paper. The surface of the plastic screen has many long cylindrical lines that act like optical lenses and reveal only part of the underlaying picture depending on the viewing angle.

The stereoscopic effect is created by aligning six images in a vertical pattern. Depending on the viewers angle, only one image will be visible to each eye at any time.

http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/pbourke/stereographics/lenticular/ explains everything in detail.

What's new

2/13/2003: I have started a rewrite of Lentils, but it's going slow. After all, I do have a 45h week already on other stuff. The new version already has a working pitch test. It will feature any number of inputs, adjustable pitch and cross platform capability. I'll keep you posted.

[lentils]

Download And Install

I decided to make the Beta 0.2 downloadable from this site. No need to install, just run the program. Filenames can be dragged into the fields or entered via keyboard.

Usage

create six images of your scene, all from a slightly different angle, all in the same size and resolution. Store them as jpeg(!) and in a resolution that is six times the resolution of your lenticular lenses (i.e. you have 50lpi lenticulars, so store your jpegs at 6*50 = 300 dpi)

If you need to scale your images, do it now. The final image must not be scaled or be modified in any other way.

Load all six images into the six input lines in 'Lentils'. You may use drag'n'drop. It was reported that this only works with pictures that are in the same folder as the program.

Enter a filename in the last input field at the bottom. This is where you lenticular image will end up. It will be a jpeg image!

Click on 'GO'. After a minute or two, your image should be written into the file.

Print the image at the same resolution as your originals. Color suplimation printers are best. Inkjet printers must have a very high resolution to generate good images since the loose a lot of detail in the dithering.

Check the results under a sheet of lenticular lenses.

If the results are wiered, you probably used the wrong resolution for the printout.

Have fun

Download MS Windows Version: lentils.zip
Linux Version: not yet
Mac OS X Version: not yet

Lentils is free to download and use. I put many hours of work into it and I am planning to improve the program when I find the time. If you like Lentils, it would be great if you could send me a short mail , explaining what you do with it. Also, a donation is always greatly appreciated. C'mon, encourge me.

Lenticular Lens Screen

This stuff is not that easy to get. There are a few places online that are selling the sheets in quantities. Be creative and let me know when you found the source.

http://www.inkjetmall.com/store/motionmagic.html looks like an ok start - and then there is always Google.

Source found by Norman Breslow:
"A source for lenticular lenses is
Micro Lens, Inc.
3308 Mikelynn Ln.
Matthews, NC 28105

They sell five packs of 22 x 28 inch material in various lpi's- their 40 lpi costs about $80 for a five pack, and they'll cut them for a few extra dollars."

Lentils?

Aaah, this is just a stupid joke: the word lenticular led to the project name 'lenti'. Also, in German, the word for lentils and lenses is the same - Linsen. So there you have it.