Description
A stereoscope produces the illusion of a single three-dimensional image from two slightly different flat images. It works only when the flat images are of identical subjects drawn or photographed from viewpoints approximately equal in separation to the distance between the human eyes. The stereoscope is constructed so that each eye sees only the appropriate image, that is the left eye sees the left viewpoint and the right eye the right viewpoint.

Binocular vision is the means by which slightly different images seen by the two eyes separately are fused in the brain into one solid image and has interested scientists for centuries.

Stereo-viewers could consist of boxes or even large cabinets, often made of walnut, fitted with pairs of viewing lenses and transparent glass slides. By 1900, stereo cards were being mass-produced, on which pairs of photographs were pasted. These were viewed through simple, hand-held stereo-viewers, consisting of a pair of hooded lenses, and a clip to hold the photographic card. The cards depicted views from all over the world.

In the second half of the Nineteenth Century a mass market for stereoscopic photographs was soon established, and the stereoscope, often in ornate forms, became a common feature in Nineteenth Century homes.

01/02/2001
Created by: Toni Parker on 01/02/2001