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Stereoscopic Small-Town America
From: The New York Public Library
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 ildly popular around the turn of the twentieth century, stereoscopic viewcards were an early attempt to create three-dimensional virtual reality. The Small-Town America website(www.digital.nypl.org/stereoviews/), part of the New York Public Library's Digital Library, contains a searchable database of 12,000 stereoscopic, or 3D, photographs of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut from the 1850s to the 1910s from the library's collection. The images, which capture nineteenth-century small-town life, depict farming, industry, transportation, homes, businesses, local celebrations, natural disasters, people and costumes. |
How do stereoscopic photos work? According to the website: |
Stereoscopic, or 3D photography, recreates the illusion of depth by taking advantage of the binocularity of human vision. Because our two eyes are set apart, each eye sees the world just a bit differently. Our brains combine these two different eye-images into one, a phenomenon that enables us to "see," ever so slightly, around the sides of objects, providing spatial depth and dimension. Stereoscopic views consist of two nearly twin photographs--one for the left eye, one for the right. When they are viewed though a special lens arrangement (a stereoscope) our brains combine the two flat images and "see" the illusion of objects in spatial depth. |
Although the images on the site are presented as standard Web images, a link is provided to an online resource where one can purchase a stereoscopic viewing aid ($3), so images can be viewed in 3D on the computer screen. All images are also available for purchase. |
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