How to see 3D

How do we see 3D?

In short, we have two eyes. That means two sources of visual information. We are essentially looking at every object from two sides, slightly slanted from each other. Our brain then combines this information to generate a 3D image of what we see, because we essentially perceive only in two dimensions.

How does it work?

The distance between the eyes creates so-called parallax – a difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. The further apart the eyes are, the more pronounced the 3D effect is, relative to distance.

What about photographic images, then?

This feature of our bodies can be exploited for photography purposes. While we cannot physically change the eyes’ position in our skulls; we can do it, however, with cameras, so it’s possible to create stereoscopic iagery with varying degrees of depth, form so slight as to be imperceptible to outright ridiculous, straining our eyes. Striking a fine balance in-between is a matter of a little experience.

All you need is two images, one for each eye. That can be accomplished either through a DIY rig (a setup with two identical cameras on a sliding arm) or just shoot two pictures with a relative distance from each other, simulating two eyes. The one-camera approach can produce better balanced depth, especially when it comes to subjects far far away, however, it is often a pain to get a clear shot with no moving objects in front of you. The two-camera setup will also let you take pictures of people, cars, or animals – in short, of moving objects.

After you have taken pictures, you just need to combine the left half and the right half into one image:

  • anaglyph (for red-and-blue glasses)
  • side-by-side (two images next to each other; most preferred as it retains all the visual information)
  • other formats specific to 3D viewing devices in question

I heartily recommend Japanese-made StereoPhoto Maker, an excellent piece of software for this particular purpose, although in theory yoou can make do with IrfanView and its Create Panorama image feature; heck, even Microsoft Paintbrush would be enough.

How can I see the pictures in 3D?

There are many options, most of them cheap (or free):

  1. Freeview
    A fancy nickname for using just your own eyes to see the 3D image, no equipment necessary. However, this can only be used for a small screen (smartphone), so don’t expect large, mind-blowing photographs. In short, you have to look at the picture as if you are dreaming (and actually looking behind the picture). Relax your eyes and let the images in front wander to their respective left and right until they combine (merge) to make one image in the middle. This approach is easier for some and more difficult for others. There are various guides and explainers with pictures how to do it. This technique is exactly the same as the one to view stereograms, once a fad in the 1990s.
  2. Light-splitting 3D glasses
    What I am talking about here is glasses that you can use to see any 3D content anywhere, it does not have to be a 3D-enabled screen. It’s essentially a life-splitter, mechanically directing reflected light for your left and right eye separately, so you can use it even for physical photographs. They look admittedly nerdy, but it’s probably the best thing for large images (from computer monitor up) in an absence of a dedicated 3D screen.
  3. 3D TV
    You can feed side-by-side images to your 3D TV and most models will immediately generate the desired 3D imagery. This involves fetching the images and uploading them to your TV on a USB stick or wirelessly.
  4. Google Cardboard
    This is an inexpensive 3D viewer using your smartphone. All you need then is an app that generates a slideshow from images in your phone. I don’t have the best experience with Google Cardboard products; the quality is low and the viewing experience feels pixelated, a far cry from similar devices used to view analog stereophotography. However, there is plethora of Chinese-made plastic Virtual Reality viewers for negligible prices on Amazon or Alibaba. Essentially Oculus Rift, only for peanuts. If there is any advice to be given, then buy devices with larger glass lenses (not small plastic ones)

History

Stereo photography is pretty much as old as photography itself; first 3D pictures date well back to 19th century. This technique resurfaces every few decades to then subsequently slip back into inconspicuous obscurity.

I got to 3D photography thrugh my father who was fascinated by it in the ’70s and showed me incredible images. They are analog photgraphs, so there is no pixelization even at a very close range. However, due to analog limitations he made fewer than 100 such pictures in his life. I have now tens of thousands of digital images, most having never been viewed.

One of the more famous proponents of stereophotography is Brian May, former Queen guitarist; there is a lively community of stereophotographers on Instagram as well. In addition, many museums around the world have digitized their collection of spectroscopic imagery of olden days and they are mostly freely available to download and view at your own leisure.

Photographers, Curators, and Collectors

Museums & Institutions

What Has Been Written About Me

“You call me fanciful, you ask me what I want from life. I want neither to reign nor to be subjected; I do not want to deceive or to make pretence; I do not want to regard the opinions of others, to strive for what other people recommend to me, without I feel the need of it. I am not used to riches — for myself they are not necessary; why, then, should I seek them only because others think that they are pleasant for all people, and consequently must be pleasant for me? I have never gone into society, I have not known what it was to shine, and as yet I have no desire to do so; why, then, should I sacrifice anything for a brilliant situation, only because according to the ideas of others it is pleasant? For what I do not feel the slightest need of, I am not going to sacrifice, I do not say myself, but even my slightest caprice. I want to be independent and live in my own way; I am prepared for whatever is needful for myself; whatever is not needful I do not want. What will be necessary for me I do not know; you say,‘I am young and inexperienced, that I shall change as time goes on,’ — well, so be it; when the time comes, I shall change; but now I do not want, do not want, do not want, anything that I do not want! ‘But what do I want now?’ you ask. Well, I am sure I do not know. […] I only know that I do not want to be anybody’s slave! I want to be free! I do not want to be under obligations to any one, so that any one should dare to say to me, ‘You must do something for me.’ I want to do only what I have it in my heart to do, and let others do the same; I do not want to ask anything of anybody; I do not want to curtail anybody’s freedom; I want to be free myself!”

Nikolai Chernyshevsky

“One day, I was shown […] one of these deserters of the family hearthstone. He had committed no crime—at least, he was under suspicion of none—but all through his life he had been a deserter, a deserter from every post. He had been to the southern frontier of the empire, the other side of the Danube, in the Kirghiz Steppe, in Eastern Siberia, the Caucasus, in a word, everywhere. Who knows? under other conditions this man might have been a Robinson Crusoe, with the passion of travel so on him. These details I have from other[s], for he did not like talk, and never opened his mouth except when absolutely necessary. He was […] very quiet in demeanour, with a face so still as to seem quite without any sort of meaning, impassive almost to idiotcy. His delight was to sit for hours in the sun humming a sort of song between his teeth so softly, that five steps off he was inaudible. His features were, so to speak, petrified; he ate little, principally black bread; he never bought white bread or spirits; my belief is, he never had had any money, and that he couldn’t have counted it if he had. He was indifferent to everything. Sometimes he fed […] dogs with his own hand, a thing no one else was known to do; (speaking generally, Russians don’t like giving dogs things to eat from the hand). People said that he had been married, twice even, and that he had children somewhere. […] He seemed an element quite foreign to the medium wherein he had his being, an alien, self-concentrated creature. Still, there was nothing in this deep surface calm which could be trusted; yet, after all, what good would it have been to him to escape from the place?

Fyodor Dostoevsky

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