Stereography or 3D Photography By Mrs. Bennett’s parents, Mr. & Mrs. Drinkut

The Beginning… was an idea of the English physicist Sir Charles Wheatstone. He first demonstrated this phenomenon by making drawings from the viewpoints of each eye. He made a device with mirrors to demonstrate the phenomenon, and gave it a name of Greek derivation, "stereoscope."

The First The British inventor, David Brewster applied Wheatstone’s idea of 3D to photography in 1849. The first photographs were made around 1838, and a decade later stereographs were being made and sold.

Shortly After Came Anaglyphs Anaglyph comes from the Greek words “again” and “sculpture”. W. Rollman who in 1853 first illustrated the principle of the anaglyph using blue and red lines on a black field with red and blue glasses to perceive the effect, but this was for line drawings only.

This is from an early geometry book on anaglyhs This is from an early geometry book on anaglyhs. The glasses were included with the book.

Moving from science into homes The hand held stereoscope was invented by Oliver Wendell Holmes around 1860, and was a huge success for decades. Meanwhile, cameras with multiple lenses and faster exposures made stereography a booming business.

Photographers were sent out to photograph the world in 3D, and the photographs were reproduced over and over to meet the demand.

It was a hit!! From 1860 to 1920 practically every middle-class and upper class home had a stereoviewer and a drawer full of stereocards. In its heyday it was the way we saw the pyramids, the Taj Mahal, Big Ben, and the Great War. It was the television of its day.

But other past-times came along, BUT With the popularization of movies, then newsreels, and finally television, interest in stereography declined. It enjoyed a niche revival in the 1950s with the popularity of View-Master.

Since View-Master was introduced in 1939, one billion reels and 100 million viewers have been sold.

Amateur photographers took snapshots of the family and kids with the Realist.

Over the years lost popularity and then...

in the late 1990s, IMAX introduced a new stereo movie projection system that, along with computer graphics and virtual reality machines, promises to increase the number of devotees, collectors, and creators.

3D Was Back - In 2009 more than a dozen major motion pictures were released in 3D and in 2010 dozens of films will be in 3D.

Several television manufacturers are working on 3D monitors for computers and the living room, and the new Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W1, introduced in 2009 likely is the leading edge of the next digital camera revolution.

What are all these people looking at? Kinds of 3D images Anaglyph Side by side Holmes cards Polarized Over under Digital ViewMaster

Anaglyph Taken Sept, 2010 at the Andersontown Powwow

Digital Projection Alley by City Lights Book store, San Franciso CA.

Holmes Card

Side-by-Side

http://stereographer.com/ http://home.earthlink.net/~flamminch/3history.html