3D Images

View-Master images go digital 3-D!

For over 65 years, the View-Master has been an amazing part of childhoods! It was one of the first ways many of us were introduced to 3D images.

Later this year,  Fisher-Price will be releasing digital 3-D images from it’s View-Master image archive! The images will be able to be viewed on a wide variety of hand-held devices and 3D TVs, and will cost $1.99 USD per set. No word on a digital View-Master yet, but that would be great!

Hasbro has already released a device called My3D, which works by displaying images from an iPod touch or iPhone. It sells for about $30 USD.

History of 3D: Static Images – The Stereoscope and Beyond

Static 3D Images

The first attempt at a mechanical method of generating 3-Dimensional, or “3D” images was with the invention of the Stereoscope.  Various dates exist for the invention of the Stereoscope, such as  1838, or 1844 and by a David Brewster (if the historical records I have been able to find are accurate).  The method was called stereoscopy.

Early Stereoscope. Image Source: foto.hut.fi

The two pictures placed side by side to produce a combined image that looks 3D were called Stereographs, Stereocards, or Stereograms. Stereo in Greek means “solid”, so these were images that appeared to be solid when viewed by the Stereoscopic method. The left image is viewed by the left eye and the right image by the right eye. The brain processes the two separate images into an illusion of a unified picture with depth.

During the Great Exhibition (also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition, due to the building it was held in), that took place in London, England in 1851, stereographs received great public attention and their rise to popular use began.

The Great Exhibition, London, 1851.

The next great development in 3D image technology came in 1853 with the invention of the Anaglyph by Wilhelm Rollmann in Germany. Anaglyphs are images made of two color layers, usually red and cyan, which are offset to produce a 3D effect when viewed with glasses with red and cyan lenses. These are the typical kind of 3D glasses that have been in use for many years.

The American Cival War (1861–1865, also known as the War Between the States) was the first major conflict that saw the use of 3D images. The Spanish–American War was also documented with stereo photography. Photography in those days was a very cumbersome wet-plate method where images were stored on chemically treated pieces of glass. The cameras were big, heavy and bulky, the chemicals needed to develop them were dangerous and the photographers often pulled their cramped darkrooms around in a cart! Photography back then was strictly for professionals!

In the late 1800′s, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, many businesses in London began developing ways to mass-produce stereographs and millions were sold in the coming years. Stereograph libraries started and many varies of stereoscopes were produced, including hand-held portable devices, to larger, furniture-like objects that become the center of parlors and living rooms.

An 1893 era "furniture-like" stereoscope.

During World War II (1939 through to 1945) 3D imagery was taken to new heights with the advent of stereoscopic images taken from airplanes. 3D maps were produced which were viewed with army-issued 3D glasses.

When I was a kid I had a modern version of the Stereoscope called a View-Master, which was first introduced in 1939. I was a kid in the 1970′s, so I had several generations of development behind my great View-Master, of the red plastic type, pictured here.  Oh, the hours I spent looking into the wonderful 3D worlds in that device! I still have it somewhere, I’m sure, along with the reels of tiny stereo photos (8mm film, I believe).

I loved my View-Master! You clicked the blue lever to advance the photos, and changed reels once you had looked through the short series. They had reels of many things, like NASA space reels, Star Trek, and cartoons, come to mind.

The classic design of the View-Master

The maker of the View-Master is Fisher-Price and they are still making them today! They have evolved the look of the viewers into some wild styles, but the underlying technology is very much the same – it was good then, and it’s still good now!

Other developments in static 3D images came in the 1990′s with computerized printing methods. Here is an example of a 3D image that is possible to experience without any special glasses. Get close enough and let your eyes unfocus…do you see it?

"Puput". (Bob Mannle, 1995). Image Link: foto.hut.fi

I really enjoyed these computerized printing methods, because I never liked wearing the 3D glasses and the red/cyan lenses made me feel a bit ill after a while.

I don’t think there have been many advances in static 3D images since then, but if you know of any then drop me a line and let me know.

The really exciting modern developments in 3D images came with moving 3D images in computer games and movies!