In the late 1800s, the stereograph — sometimes incorrectly called a stereopticon — was a big craze. You’d view two side-by-side images through some lenses and see a three-dimensional image. This, of course, later would morph into View-Masters and, eventually, virtual reality headsets. But if you have an old stereograph, where do you get new images for it? If you are [Engineers Need Art], you write a program to convert MPO files (a common 3D image format) to printable stereograms. Interestingly, he used AI to assist in the project and has observations about where it helped and where it didn’t.
The post goes into a lot of detail about how the author experimented with 3D imaging for many years. However, it eventually discusses a MacOS application built with the help of an AI chatbot.
There are a number of subtle issues involved with creating a viewer, and those are — unsurprisingly — the parts where AI needs the most help. You can find the source code for the application on GitHub.
Honestly, this made us think of building some 3D camera gear or even adapting the program to a VR headset. On the other hand, reading glasses can make a cheap stereoscope. While not pretty, they are more comfortable than cross-eyed viewing.
I guess I should someday post on my gizmo: Two EOS-M’s and adapted 28mm FDn lenses running MagicLantern with audio-triggering turned on and a button bridging the mic power contact for both to the output contacts. Bolt both into a stereo bracket through the tripod mounts and it becomes a way to take 2 high-quality pictures with inter-pupil separation and the same timing and direction.
Yes, you should!
Am impressed – cross-eyed viewing works for the image within the HaD article image!
Sort of, the distance is reversed. About 50 years ago I wondered what if I reversed the left and right slides in a ViewMaster disc of an interior shot down the middle of a then new 707 jetliner. Then it was obvious that something was wrong.
It’s fake at best an effect only when reversed.
They weren’t any form of craze in “the late 1800s”, let alone a big craze. The stereoscope was invented in 1838 by Wheatstone, and more famously 5 years later he improved and popularised the bridge that bears his name.
Perhaps you meant late 19th century? The popularity of commercial stereoscopic photos continued for several decades, with WW1, Italy, and the Holy Land being popular subjects.
Amateur stereoscopic photography is reinvented periodically. For example it was big in the 1950s, with averts starring a couple of US Presidents, Reagan and Eisenhower.
All my photos between 1985 and the end of slide film were stereoscope, taken on a Stereo Realist and a Zeiss Ikon Contaflex.
For amusement only, I’ve just bought ~250 rather gory stereoscopic photographs: dissections of the human body, accompanied by surgical descriptions of the main features.
I have a Realist, an old family viewer and the usual collections of the San Francisco earthquake, various National Parks, and places around the world. Sort of a Futurama “Things if Interest!”
These days I scan B&W from the Realist and print cards for the viewer, but not for a while. I have been side-tracked by the wonders of focus-stacking!
Stereo realist represent!
I’ve always wanted to make an automatic workflow for aligning and converting them into digital stereo pairs, but I had a hard time convincing my film scanner to accept the odd format.
I have an old(?) Epson ‘V600 Photo’ scanner which has some film holders and has been great for photos and negatives, documents and all that. I got it from someone who was throwing it out. I scan 120 film from a Mamiya RB-67 as well and the result is shockingly good. There are some NIB on eBay.
You left out Viewmaster.
I missed many out.
I have some othe types, e.g. gurgle for “vintagestereoscopicglassslides” including the quotes :)
“They weren’t any form of craze in the late 1800s”, [….] “Perhaps you meant late 19th century?”
– well, that’s the same thing, isn’t it?
1800s sound like the first decade of 19th century. Give or take a year depending on whether you’re team one-based or team zero-based ;-)
” well, that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”
Not unless you think we are still living in the “noughties” or “teens”.
1820s from 1820 to 1829
1810s from 1810 to 1819
1800s from 1800 to 1809
19th century from 1800 to 1899
Exception: 1st century is from 1 to 99, since 0 wasn’t used then
Hmkay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1800s_(decade)
“The 1800s (pronounced “eighteen-hundreds”) was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on 1 January 1800, and ended on 31 December 1809.
The term “eighteen-hundreds” could also mean the entire century from 1 January 1800 to 31 December 1899 (the years beginning with “18”), and is almost synonymous with the 19th century (1801–1900). ”
Which leads me to suspect the author had the second meaning in mind.
Late 1800s and late 19th century are two ways of saying the same thing. Same as the 1980s are the late 20th century. Technically you could say the 1900s instead of the twentieth century which admittedly sounds a bit weird.
How, exactly, would you refer to the decade 1800-1809 to distinguish it from the decade 1810-1819 or 1840-1849?
The 1980s are from 1980 to 1989. No argument there.
The 1800s are from 1800 to 1809.
The 19th century is from 1800 to 1899 (give or take the argument that the third millenium started on Jan 1st 2001 :) )
Yeah you’re gonna have to fight with a lot of people there. But maybe it’s a language thing, being native Dutch “1800s” always meant 1800-1900.
I have that FujiFilm 3d camera! I love these old stereograms. Or anything to do with 3d, honestly.
Stereographs always hit me with serious nostalgia; my grandfather, an optometrist, always had an antique viewer and a huge selection of vintage photos in his waiting room. (His practice ran from the 1950s through the early 2000s.) They were mostly a thematic novelty for him, though they had a mild diagnostic use.
They needn’t be “merely” nostalgic.
There are active stereoscopic societies in many countries.
I’ve been making these for years for my own stereoscope by just taking a bunch of photos moving the camera sideways while I take a handful of photos and then in photoshop checking them with cross eye method. Hardest part was printing them in high quality because I had to send them to kinkos. Ineas hoping they’d get more traction when google cardboard came out and NY Times put them in free one Sunday. Glad to see someone else doing it. I made a video of the macro shots I took and posted it to YouTube.
https://youtu.be/mB-ea5DGXrU?si=Yw2xsbUFydTOX7Zg
I’ve never been able to get my mind to accept the cross-eye method. With considerable difficulty, I can make the parallel-view method work for small displacements; a pair of paper towel tubes help as a viewer. Anaglyphs only make the equivalent of B&W images, and the filters I have don’t seem to match LCD display colors.
I can’t master either the cross or parallel free views :( Nor those “magic pseudorandom patterns” that were fashionable a few years ago. The latter bothers me not a single whbit :)
There are several colour schemes for red-blue anaglyphs. Perhaps you have a mismatch between your glasses and the picture source?
My red-blue anaglyphs were given away with The Sun newspaper in January 1992, for use with their pictures of ;) They work acceptably well with the anaglyphs occasionally found on Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Back less than 10 years ago(?) there was the ‘Google Cardboard’ craze, so I bought some cheap Golden Dragon lenses off eBay to make a mobile phone stereo viewer at that time. I never used them as I acquired a WWII british War Department photoreconnaissance pocket stereo viewer not long after. I just checked eBay and the lenses are still readily available.
It is very easy to do Stereopics with a normal camera if there is no movement in the picture. Put the camera on a slider, Do one picture, Move the camera to the left/right and do a second picture.
The biggest problem was to calculate the distance of movement because it depend on the lens and the distance to the nearest thing in the picture. All in one very easy. I did it often in the past.
The problem in this days is to buy a new 3D TV, because they are all gone. :-(
Biggest problem is movement. Try to capture someone jumping in the air, or (more subtly and very disturbingly) flowing water.
For closeups, I’ve used a Nimslo. I left the outer two lenses unchanged for conventional snapshots, but refocussed the inner two lenses for closeups. Ignore the horrible lenticular prints, of course :)
There are standard formulae for the inter-lens distance, but IMHO a little experimentation is helpful.
Another very “dirty” trick is to use a single lens, but mount the subject on a turntable and rotate it a few degrees.
Much as I love stereoscopic photos, given the choice between stereo and better resolution, I will always choose higher resolution. Stereo TV halves the resolution (in one direction).
The other problem is that the depth “magnification” depends on the distance between the eyes and the screen. There is a sweet spot.
There is not always movement: :-)
https://www.criseis.ruhr.de/bilder3d/Paprika_1cm.mpo
But if I would do this I will buy one of the rare 3D digital camera, connect two camera together or use a special picture splitter before the lens.
Only the cheap one. My Panasonic TV made it with 4k for both eye.
But from time to time you had to insert a new 2032 in the glasses.
Someone should write a linux programm that shows MPOs on a computer monitor and use the Panasonic bluetooth shutter glasses. So there is a good reason for 120Hz monitor. :)
Olaf
What was the TV source material and transmission mechanism that had 4K true resolution?
I’ve done some ‘time for space’ stereo pairs using just my phone, and moving a few cm between images:
https://combicreations.com/steve/2022/10/22/time-for-space-stereo-photography/
Why all the hassle of printing when you can just use a VR viewer? Or attach a small display in the spot where the photos used to go, maybe use an e-paper one and post a YT about it and get a HaD article from it.
Just curious,
have anyone kept track of how many times 3D television has failed?
They were really pushing it around the years “avatar” was released. When I saw that on a flat screen there was some ridiculous jungle slide with apparently the sole function to make people with a 3d screen dizzy.
This project sounds like a “great journey of discovery” into stereo photography
Some great resources for today’s 3D photographers include:
StereoPhoto Maker – great free software for digital 3D
https://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/
Photo-3d forum – for active Q&A
https://photo-3d.groups.io/g/main/topics
The National Stereoscopic Association – huge online library of back issues
stereoworld.org