Looking at paired images and creating digitized 3-D pictures is becoming very popular. Being able to control one's eyes to view paired images is a new experience to most. Not all people can do it immediately, particularly without using some form of artificial viewing aid. But with patience, almost everyone can learn.
For practice, you might wish to preview the first 3-D background page in Internet history, paralax test page, a blank 3-d background, or the detailed drawing that created this background. HOW 3-D VIEWING WORKS:
Since normal photographs are two-dimensional, seeing things in the round requires imitating the interocular spacing between the eyes and then delivering slightly different images to each eye. The brain combines and interprets the slight angle differenced as depth--the greater the angle, the closer the object appears--the lesser the angle, the more distant the object appears. Perspective also becomes a factor to depth interpolation, that is, the closer the object, the larger it appears to the eye--the further the object, the smaller it appears. In stereo viewing, depth perception disappears at about 1/4 mile, so photographing landscapes with a typical stereo camera without showing objects in the foreground becomes rather meaningless. However, there are ways to enhance depth for faraway objects, a matter which shall be discussed at a later time (with examples provided). http://www.3dviewmax.com/
A LITTLE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
My first experience with 3-D art began in childhood with a family airloom. Invented around 1860, a contraption called a Stereoscope Viewer used paired photographic prints mounted side-by-side in perfect horizontal allignment. Some of the first stereo pictures were made of Abraham Lincoln, so the principle of paired-image viewing was well understood at that time. To create a feeling of really being there, the pictures were sometimes hand-tinted to produce the effect of color. The paired images were placed on a wooden track for proper allignment and were viewed by peering through an eyepiece containing prismatic lenses. These lenses tricked the eyes by artificially re-alligning their paralax. In other words, even though both eyes were focussing inward as if reading a book, the prismatic lenses bent the paralax outward so that each eye would see its proper image, and then magnified the image for comfortable viewing.
That interest in stereo viewing was further stimulated in the early 1950's when comic books and 3-D movies became the rage. At first, greenish-blue and red filters isolated left and right eye images for proper viewing. That was later replaced by polarized lenses and special projection techniques and screens which accommodated left-right eye polarized filtering. Long after the stereoscope was invented, another novelty color transparency viewer called the Viewmaster® came into the market and became extremely popular.
It was at that time that I discovered I had a wandering eye. When I leaned on my hand at my desk at school, I discovered that one eye wandered, or mis-alligned with the other letting me see double images. My friends said I should be careful, "They might get stuck." I thought it unusual enough to be some kind of asset if used properly. As I dissected the 3-D comic books, I figured out how the drawings worked and started making 3-D drawings of my own. At first, I used red and green or red and blue pencils. Later, I discovered I could use my lazy eye trick to allign the images, so I didn't need to use colored pencils and red and green filters anymore.
About then, the Viewmaster® came along. The Viewmaster® was a small viewing device--much like a pair of binoculars--that held a rotating disk into which paired image transparency photos were mounted. Colored micro-photography made it possible to view rather complex scenes--even landscapes--on a format of about 1/2 square inch through a pair of inexpensive plastic lenses. Earlier versions required the viewer to point the frosted "light source" end of the device toward light, while later versions offered an optional battery-operated portable light source. The Viewmaster® was the perfect birthday or Christmas gift for adults as well as children to experience the world through 3-D lenses.
In the mid 1960's, my father-in-law, Dr. Ralph Richards Stevenson, invented an incredible 3-D x-ray machine. For its time, the invention was a phemomenon. It pre-dated the sonar resonent imaging and multi-image CT x-ray scanning devices in such wide use today. Unfortunately, the story had a sad end--a typical big-guy corporation against the little-guy inventor. In the end, nobody won. The company who purchased rights to develp, manufacture and market the technology simply found ways to circumvent the patent. By shorcutting Dr. Stevenson's invention, the potential of the project was compromised, and like many other good inventions, the 3-D xray ended up on the scrap heap of history.
While he was at work on the invention, Dr. Stevenson invited me to Washington D.C. to help develop a way to project 3-dimensional images. I determined 5 possible solutions for which I built and demonstrated a series of devices and drawings. He was extremely pleased with the result. The simplest and best solution of all turned out to be to simply learn to control the paralax of the eyes. All other solutions cost something--either in light loss or lost of picture segments. In one case, polarizing filters resulted in a 10% loss of light making the reading of fine detail in x-ray paired images unsatisfactory. On the other hand, viewing the same images by controlling paralax made the images even more useful than when viewed in normal 2-D.
HOW TO VIEW THIS BACKGROUND IMAGE:
For starters, this picture becomes three dimensional if you can learn to look at it either cross-eyed or wall-eyed. What happens is: each eye naturally sees an object in space from two slightly different angles. When you attempt to look at stereo paired images, the brain becomes confused because each eye sees both images. If your eye muscles wander laterally or inwardly, each eye then sees both images, which means that the brain now sees four separate images. The trick is to bring the two closer images together until they fuse into one, thus appearing as one three-dimensional picture. The process is much simpler if we look at smaller pieces of information such as tiles that are perfectly alligned, or patterns on a piece of reinforcing bar for concrete. The pattens must line up exactly parallel to the eyes so that the two eyes and the two pictures can merge into one. Since the left and right eye components in this picture are already horizontally alligned, that should aid the learning process.
A good trick is to place the picture at approximately 2 feet while holding the thumb approximately 10 to 14 inches in front of your face. Making sure the eyes are in perfect horizontal allignment to the objects in the picture, concentrate on the thumb, moving it in and out slightly. Focussing your eyes on a spot at the very tip of you finger nail, you will notice that the out-of-focus objects in the background come together and go apart. As two like imiges come together, or merge, relax. Your brain will help the lens muscles fuse and focus the image into a 3-D picture.
If it feels uncomfortable, or your eye muscles hurt, don't worry. Rest a little and then try again. You are doing something you have never done before, forcing the parallax and fucussing muscles to work independently. If your eyes are slightly mis-alligned, slightly rock your head sideways until the horizontal planes converge.
Another trick is to cut a hole approximately 2.5 inches wide and 2 inches high in the center of a piece of white typing paper. Holding this paper frame 10 to 14 inches in front of your eyes and concentrating on a small spot at the center of the hole will force your eyes to cross, and as your eyes line up properly to the left and right eye portions of the image on the screen, the paper serves as a mask so that each eyes will eventually see only one 3-D image. Using this method eliminates all the ghost imaging caused by seing the duplicate images and all other objects in the background, objects which are normally out of fucus. This method makes it easier to become accustomed to the process.
Good Luck!
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