CounterPoint Counter Mats

Lenticular Counter Mat Effects

• PRODUCT
• PRICING
• OPTIONS
• EFFECTS

What Is Lenticular: Lenticular is a unique printing process that creates the illusion of three dimensions, moving images, morphing images, and images that change instantly from one to another.

At the center of the process is the lenticular lens material. This material is made up of parallel rows of optical lenses that magnify and show to the eye only a small portion of the image printed under it. In order to control the small slice of the printed image that the lens magnifies and shows to the eye, the images under each row of lens are sliced up and correctly aligned for the lens through a process called interlacing.

With our process, the properly aligned interlaced image is printed directly to the lenticular lens material at very high resolution—500 line screen or greater—on our 6 color Heidelberg® CD74 UV printing press. Once the lenticular lens and interlaced image are combined the desired effect is created adding a WOW factor to the promotion.

3-D takes advantage of the fact that we have two eyes that see everything from a slightly different perspective (parallax) to create the illusion of 3-D. To understand how this works, do the following simple experiment. Hold your hand out at arms length with your thumb up. Close your left eye so you’re looking through only your right eye. Mentally note the position of the background behind your thumb. Now open your left eye and close your right eye. Looking through your left eye, notice that the background has shifted. This shift is referred to as “parallax”. Each eye sees a different view of your thumb and the background. When these views are combined in your brain you see a 3-D view of your thumb. With 3-D lenticular, the image is constructed so that a different version or view of the print is visible through the lens to each eye. This allows your brain to register what your eyes are seeing as 3-D depth. The rows of lenticular lens are aligned vertically and as the view shifts from side to side, each eye is presented with its own slightly different perspective of the objects on the counter mat, giving the impression of true depth.

Flip allows two pictures called “phases” or “frames” to be printed on one counter mat. As the viewer moves, the visible picture changes from one image to the other. Horizontal lenticular lenses focus on one or the other image as the view shifts from top to bottom. Art elements may be included in both frames so they are always visible.

Motion/Morph/Animation/Zoom counter mats are similar to flips, but use more than two pictures or “frames” arranged in a sequential order to create the illusion of movement (Motion & Animation), transformation (Morph), or an image increasing or decreasing in size (Zoom). Generally, a common background is used with only certain elements changing in each frame.

Multiple Effects can be included on one counter mat. A common combination is the 3-D/Flip which combines the 3-D and Flip lenticular effects. One or both images in the flip can be three dimensional.