Lenticular technology has been around since 1950s and was originally used mostly in novelty items and often associated with marketing gimmicks. Lenticular technology can be used to produce serious artwork and are now being used as a marketing tool to show products in motion and depth.

Lenticular graphics are specialized images that appear to move / change or have 3D effect when viewed from different angles. The two main components that make up lenticular prints are:  lenticular lens and a flat printed image. The lenticular lens has thin parallel ribs on one side of the surface and these ribs are called lenticules.

The image itself is a composite of two or more graphics that are divided into extremely narrow strips. The strips are arranged in alternating lines and merged in a process known as ‘interlacing’. The resulting interlaced files are printed and placed beneath the lens; to be precisely aligned with the lens for the effect to work. The lens forces the eye to focus on each of the printed frames in sequence according to the angle of observation. When you change the angle, the images also changes too.

How then are we able to see 3D in lenticular? Human perceive 3D view of the environment using two eyes. Our eyes are located at a slight distance from one another and because of this distance each eye sees a slightly different image of the same scene. The brain combined the images from these two different viewpoints into a 3D image to obtain a sense of depth and volume.

For 3D lenticular prints, it presents the image sequence of the same object from slightly different viewpoints to our two eyes. The lenticular lens reveals a slightly different view to each eye which gives the viewer the illusion of depth.