Happy Thought for 7 June 2024

Have a Happy Thought:

 

3-D movies are once again* in theatres, and tech companies are, despite Facebook’s Metaverse fiasco and Google’s Glass, working toward ever-more immersive technologies. 

*huh, according to Wikipedia pages, 3D hasn’t been out of the theatres since the 1950s, or by some definitions even as far back as the early 1900s, before talkies** even became a thing!

**for those that don’t know, “talkies” is what people called the early movies that actually had soundtracks, including dialogue – before that, there may have just been music, often played by live orchestras! Once you learn this, it’s hard not to think very differently about the fact that we still use the word “movie”… like seriously, we haven’t yet gotten over the fact that the pictures, they move!

 

 Back to talking about 3-D. The idea that people might want to experience something in 3-D that they weren’t physically there for? Well, at a minimum it’s been around for well over 100 years. (If anyone knows of a much longer history, I’d love to hear it!)

 May I gently remind you of (or introduce you to) stereoscopes. The fundamental idea here is that you can take two pictures, from almost-but-not-quite-the-same spot, and then put one photo in front of each eye. This tricks your brain into “seeing” in 3-D, because honestly that’s what our brain is doing all day anyway – taking two images, gathered a few cm apart, and constructing a three-dimensional world for you to move around in.

 Let’s go back a bit though, to tackle two things.

1. How do you take two pictures from almost-but-not-quite-the-same-spot, consistently? It’s really just as simple as taking two cameras and bolting them together so the lenses are side-by-side, and you take the two images at the same time.
1. Yes you can still buy cameras that do this for you!
2. Or you can get your very modern smartphone to do this for you
2. How do you only show one image to each eye? Imagine 3-D glasses but waaaayyyy less cool than any you’ve seen recently…

Patent notice wood-engraved illustration showing stereograph viewer, 1855 Byram, Joseph H. / Library of Congress

 

Of course, it didn’t take long for some much more svelte-looking, and comfortable, viewers to be created (anyone remember the View-Master?)

By ThePassenger - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6487250

 

Of course what you really want to see is some early stereograph photos, and I wouldn’t let you down. Enjoy!

 

The Great Sphinx in 1900

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-f484-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

 

A game of cricket in 1865 in Barbados.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-ac83-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

 

Date palms in the Bahamas, 1900

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-d78d-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

 

Cacao pods from Dominica, 1900

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e9-0290-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

  

Shoshone Falls, Snake River, Idaho, 1874

Timothy H. O’Sullivan/ Library of Congress, via Smithsonian Magazine

 

Glacier Point in Yosemite Valley, 1902

https://oregondigital.org/concern/images/df66v703b

 

And today, stereograph images can help us have a hint of what it’s actually like on another planet – literally!

This cylindrical-perspective stereo mosaic was created from navigation camera images acquired by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit during Spirit's sol 153, on June 8, 2004. Spirit is pointing toward the base of the "Columbia Hills."

By NASA/JPL - http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/gallery/3d/spirit/2004.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=907681