Dua buah cermin mata RealD menunjukkan kesan polarisasiApabila melihat ke dalam cermin dengan satu mata, the lens over the open eye will always appear darkly tinted in the reflection. Note that there’s a mirror between background and foreground.

Teknologi pawagam RealD 3D menggunakan cahaya terkutub bulat untuk menghasilkan imej stereoskopik projection. Teknologi Circular polarization has the advantage over pengutuban linear methods in that viewers are able to tilt their head and look about the theater naturally without a disturbing loss of 3D perception, whereas linear polarization projection requires viewers to keep their head orientation aligned within a narrow range of tilt for effective 3D perception; otherwise they may see double or darkened images.[2]

Projektor video pawagam digital grade berresolusi tinggi memaparkan gambar mata kiri dan mata kanan berselang-seli 144 kali sesaat.[2] The projector is either a Texas Instruments' Digital Light Processing device or Sony's reflective paparan hablur cecair. A push-pull electro-optical hablur cecair modulator called a ZScreen is placed immediately in front of the projector lens to alternately polarize each frame. It circularly polarizes the frames clockwise untuk mata kanan dan mengikut arah lawan jam untuk mata kiri. Penonton memakai cermin mata yang oppositely circularly polarized lenses untuk memastikan mata hanya melihat gambar untuknya sahaja, even if the head is tilted. Dalam pawagam RealD, setiap gambar dipaparkan tiga kali to reduce flicker, a system called triple flash. The source video is usually produced 24 gambar sesaat untuk satu mata (jumlah 48 gambar sesaat), which may result in subtle ghosting and stuttering on horizontal camera movements. A layar perak digunakan untuk to maintain the light polarization upon reflection and to reduce reflection loss to counter the inherent losses by the polarization filters. Hasilnya ialah sebuah gambar 3D yang seems to extend behind and in front of the screen itself.[3]