Stereoscopic Photos
Viewing an image in stereo (sometimes known as 3-D), has had a chequered career in the popularity stakes. It was all the rage in the 1850's/60's and was popular in the 1870's, but gradually fell out of fashion until it emerged as a craze in the 1890's again and continued until the beginning of the 20th Century.
It was a very simple method of viewing, a pair of images taken with a special two lensed camera, with the lenses spaced at about the same width apart as the human eyes. They were viewed through a hand held stereo viewer or cabinet. Some very early ones were known as 'Tissue stereo cards', and when seen through a special cabinet viewer that incorporated a mirror for reflected light plus an opaque glass behind the image, created day and night scenes of the same image subject. Depending on the position of the mirror, stars or candlelight etc were created by pin pricks or slits in the tissue- many of the cards were hand coloured as well - This style was very popular on the Continent, especially in France
Stereo viewing has never gained a dominant foothold since, though there has always been background interest, especially in the 1950's with some 3-D films at the cinema. These still can be seen today and need special red and and blue (cyan) glasses to see them. 'Imax' movies were also popular in the 80's and 90's - The recent emergence of new good quality new 3-D movies, such as 'Toy Story' and 'Avatar', using special polarised glasses gives better colour fidelity compared to the traditonal red/cyan layout. The introduction also of a handy 3-D still camera by Fujifilm, will further enhance the popularity of this form of viewing - movie cameras and phones with 3-D capability are also are also on the market.
With new technology, television, computer monitors, and mobile phones are now being made to view moving and static 3-D images, not to mention lenticular prints.
The football World Cup in 2010 hastened the makers of televisions and the broadcasting companies to bring this technology to the public; likewise the 2012 Olympics in London did the same - Future high profile events will I am sure spur competition to give better products in the future.
The market however is still up in the air, with the different types of viewing glasses with each make of television, and until a standard is made, or even better still, a tv that does not need glasses, resistance to stereo viewing will always be there. Also once the novelty value has gone again, will the money be there to film every blockbuster in 3D? There is also a story going around that 2D glasses are being made to watch 3D films as some people get headaches!
To view 3-D images on the internet with a normal computer screen, the usual method of using red/cyan glasses is still the most popular method - these pictures are known as anaglyphs - some examples of anaglyphs have been converted and our shown here and can be viewed if you own red/cyan glasses.
The red should be over the left eye and the cyan over the right.
It was a very simple method of viewing, a pair of images taken with a special two lensed camera, with the lenses spaced at about the same width apart as the human eyes. They were viewed through a hand held stereo viewer or cabinet. Some very early ones were known as 'Tissue stereo cards', and when seen through a special cabinet viewer that incorporated a mirror for reflected light plus an opaque glass behind the image, created day and night scenes of the same image subject. Depending on the position of the mirror, stars or candlelight etc were created by pin pricks or slits in the tissue- many of the cards were hand coloured as well - This style was very popular on the Continent, especially in France
Stereo viewing has never gained a dominant foothold since, though there has always been background interest, especially in the 1950's with some 3-D films at the cinema. These still can be seen today and need special red and and blue (cyan) glasses to see them. 'Imax' movies were also popular in the 80's and 90's - The recent emergence of new good quality new 3-D movies, such as 'Toy Story' and 'Avatar', using special polarised glasses gives better colour fidelity compared to the traditonal red/cyan layout. The introduction also of a handy 3-D still camera by Fujifilm, will further enhance the popularity of this form of viewing - movie cameras and phones with 3-D capability are also are also on the market.
With new technology, television, computer monitors, and mobile phones are now being made to view moving and static 3-D images, not to mention lenticular prints.
The football World Cup in 2010 hastened the makers of televisions and the broadcasting companies to bring this technology to the public; likewise the 2012 Olympics in London did the same - Future high profile events will I am sure spur competition to give better products in the future.
The market however is still up in the air, with the different types of viewing glasses with each make of television, and until a standard is made, or even better still, a tv that does not need glasses, resistance to stereo viewing will always be there. Also once the novelty value has gone again, will the money be there to film every blockbuster in 3D? There is also a story going around that 2D glasses are being made to watch 3D films as some people get headaches!
To view 3-D images on the internet with a normal computer screen, the usual method of using red/cyan glasses is still the most popular method - these pictures are known as anaglyphs - some examples of anaglyphs have been converted and our shown here and can be viewed if you own red/cyan glasses.
The red should be over the left eye and the cyan over the right.
