3/11/10 Word Post: Lenticular Printing

Lenticular printing is a technology in which a lenticular lens is used to produce images with an illusion of depth, or the ability to change or move as the image is viewed from different angles.

This technology was created in the 1940s but has evolved in recent years to show more motion and increased depth. Originally used mostly in novelty items, lenticular prints are now being used as a marketing tool to show products in motion. Recent advances in large-format presses have allowed for oversized lenses to be used in lithographic lenticular printing. The combined lenticular print will show two or more different images simply by changing the angle from which the print is viewed.

Each image is sliced into strips, which are then interlaced with one or more other images. These are printed on the back of a piece of plastic, with a series of long, thin lenses molded into the other side. Alternatively, the images can be printed on paper, which is then bonded to the plastic. The lenses are lined up with each image interlace, so that light reflected off each strip is refracted in a slightly different direction, but the light from all strips of a given image are sent in the same direction (parallel).

The end result is that a single eye or camera looking at the print sees a single whole image, but an eye or camera with a different angle of view will see a different image.
There are three distinct types of lenticular print, distinguished by how great a change in angle of view is required to change the image:


Transforming prints

Here two or more very different pictures are used, and the lenses are designed to require a relatively large change in angle of view to switch from one image to another. This allows viewers to easily see the original images, since small movements cause no change. Larger movement of the viewer or the print causes the image to flip from one image to another. (The "flip effect".)

Animated prints

Here the distance between different angles of view is "medium", so that while both eyes usually see the same picture, moving a little bit switches to the next picture in the series. Usually many sequential images would be used, with only small differences between each image and the next. This can be used to create a image that moves ("motion effect"), or can create a "zoom" or "morph" effect, in which part of the image expands in size or changes shape as the angle of view changes. An example is shown in the image above.

Stereoscopic effects

Here the change in viewing angle needed to change images is small, so that each eye sees a slightly different view. This creates a 3D effect without requiring special glasses.

I am interested in trying to show my images like this. I still have to do the research that will make it possible for my images to be shown like this and as of yet I haven’t found anything available. But I will keep looking!!!

Oster, Gerald (1965). "Optical Art" (subscription required). Applied Optics 4 (11): 1359–69. doi:10.1364/AO.4.001359. http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=ao-4-11-1359.

Lake, Matt (1999-05-20). "An art form that's precise but friendly enough to wink". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E5DC1E3EF933A15756C0A96F958260. Retrieved 2008-06-04.