3D has been largely popularized as a form of 'trick
photography'. But how does 3D work? It's deceptively simple. A 3D camera simultaneously takes a
picture from two slightly different positions - the distance separating your
eyes which are about 2.5 inches apart. When the two images are seen again by
each eye through a viewer or with special glasses the brain interprets
everything to be as it originally was - and so the 'Realism' is created.
The images are 'merged' in your brain.
In his book, 'Stereoscopic Photography' first
published in 1926, A. W. Judge writes,
"The value of photography to mankind depends almost
entirely upon the truthful records which it gives of different subjects as
the eye sees them. Leaving out of these considerations the question of
photographic manipulation for artistic, or impressional effects, it will be
evident that the ordinary, flat photograph does not depict the
subject as the eyes perceive it, but only as one eye does, and that it loses
thereby a good deal of its value and interest. The ordinary photograph,
invaluable as it is for many purposes, fails to provide a truthful
impression of the picture seen by the eyes."
It may come as a surprise to you that the 3D process was first
demonstrated by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838 . And that the work of Sir David Brewster of the same era is the basis for much of the
present form of stereoscopy - and LASERS. But that's another story (www.lasershows.com).
