Focus Article A brief history of stereoscopy R. Duane King∗ We focus on a timeline for stereoscopic visualization. The timeline can be conceived as three distinct eras. The first era was characterized by the full understanding of stereoscopic vision and the development of the stereoscope technology for viewing three dimensional images. The first era was greatly enabled by the simultaneous development of photographic technologies. The second era was characterized by the development of polarized light and anaglyph stereo technology and was mainly manifested with a dramatic outpouring of motion pictures. The third era, the digital era, was developed in connection with virtual reality and scientific data visualization. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. How to cite this article: WIREs Comput Stat 2013, 5:334–340. doi: 10.1002/wics.1264 Keywords: stereoscopic visualization; stereoscope; shutter glasses; anaglyph stereo; virtual reality INTRODUCTION • From 1838 to about 1930, devices such as the stereoscope, coupled with newly developing or the purposes of this discussion, we use the terms photography, made 3D image viewing a Fthree dimensional (3D) and stereoscopic to mean fashionable technology and popular especially the same thing; that is, 3D is defined as presenting among the people of the Victorian era. There slightly different images to the left and right eyes is a stereoscope in the Lincoln family home in so that the human visual system can integrate these Springfield, IL1 (see Figure 1). two images into a single image that is stereoscopic. • Sometimes, the term 3D used to mean an image that From about 1950 to perhaps the early 1970s, 3D obeys the principles of perspective with additional stereo gained new interest with the increasing lighting and rendering models so that depth cues can use of anaglyph stereo on the printed page and polarized light stereo in the world of motion be inferred from the image without a true stereoscopic pictures. display. The history of 3D stereoscopic visualization can • Beginning around 1990 the introduction of roughly be divided into three eras. Early stereoscopic high refresh-rate cathode ray tube (CRT) visualization featured side-by-side devices coupled projectors and liquid crystal shutter glasses with the emergence of photography. Later, stereo- until the current time with 3D high definition scopic visualization enjoyed a popular resurgence television sets, stereo has gained additional based on anaglyph and polarizing filters. Even more interest among scientists as well as movie makers recently, a technical resurgence of stereoscopy is and the general public. The early adoption of based on computerized capabilities coupled with shutter glasses and high refresh-rate projectors head-mounted displays (HMDs) and shutter glasses. complemented the growing interest in virtual reality (VR). ∗Correspondence to: [email protected] STEREOSCOPIC TECHNOLOGIES School of Physics, Astronomy and Computational Sciences, George Mason University, Fairfax, VI, USA Hodges2 outlined a number of stereoscopic display technologies. More recently Symanzik3 published Conflict of interest: The author has declared no conflicts of interest an adapted version of Hodges’ technologies. for this article. We present a further, slightly simplified and 334 © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Volume 5, July/August 2013 WIREs Computational Statistics History of stereoscopy crystal devices, are the popular choices in the present era of stereo display devices. PRINCIPLES OF STEREOSCOPIC DISPLAY The underlying principles of stereoscopic (binary) vision were documented by Charles Wheatstone4,5 (1802–1875). He suggests that Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) had some notion that the left and right eyes would see different images, in particular, that an object, for example, a sphere would obscure different background detail for the left eye and the right eye: FIGURE 1| Stereoscope ca 1890. (Source: From E. Wegman Collection) that a painting, though conducted with the greatest art and finished to the last perfection, both with regard to its contours, its lights, its shadows and its colours, abbreviated, adaptation of the Hodges–Symanzik can never show a relievo equal to that of the natural taxonomy. objects, unless these be viewed at a distance and with a singleeye....Thetruthofthisobservationistherefore • Time-Parallel evident, because a painted figure intercepts all the space behind its apparent place, so as to preclude the • Anaglyph eyes from the sight of every part of the imaginary ground behind it.4 • Red–green Wheatstone4 concludes: • Red–cyan • Had Leonardo da Vinci taken, instead of a sphere, a Polarized light less simple figure for the purpose of his illustration, a • Separate image cube for instance, he would not only have observed that the object obscured from each eye a different part • Split screen of the more distant field of view, but the fact would • Dual screen also perhaps have forced itself upon his attention, that the object itself presented a different appearance to • Head-mounted each eye. He failed to do this, and no subsequent writer within my knowledge has supplied the omission; the • Freeviewing projection of two obviously dissimilar pictures on the • Autostereogram two retinæ when a single object is viewed, while the optic axes converge, must therefore be regarded as a • Time-multiplex new fact in the theory of vision. Wheatstone also discusses Gaspar Monge • Electro-optical (1746–1818) and his contributions to descriptive geometry. Wheatstone’s 1838 paper,4 however, fully • Liquid crystal comprehends stereoscopic vision and describes a • Shutter glasses device for stereoscopic visualization, albeit large and complicated, and as such must be considered the • Mechanical pioneer in stereoscopic visualization.a In the same general timeframe, there was an early There are several other techniques which have introduction of anaglyph stereo. Symanzik3 recounts not gained any substantial following. The stereoscope this early history of anaglyph stereo techniques and in the earliest era is an example of a separate attributes the earliest work to Rollmann6,7 and image viewer. Anaglyph and polarized light stereo d’Almeda.8 Rollmann6 introduced side-by-side images technologies are most represented in the middle era. colored in red and green with the technique of free- HMDs and shutter glasses, usually built around liquid viewing. Later in the same year, Rollmann7 proposed Volume 5, July/August 2013 © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 335 Focus Article wires.wiley.com/compstats using filters corresponding to the same colors for film would have been available then. Frequently early viewing the images. D’Almeda8 also proposed using silent movies would be tinted to set the mood, so some light of different colors to produce stereoscopic coloring would have been possible. The first known images. It was not until 1901 when Hering9 proposed 3D feature movie12 shown to a paying audience was a method of using projectors to produce anaglyph The Power of Love in September 27, 1922 at the stereoscopic images. However, anaglyph stereoscopic Ambassador Hotel Theater in Los Angeles. This movie technology did not achieve the popular reception that was shown by using two film projectors producing an the stereoscope received. anaglyph image. It is unknown if filters were used on the projectors to produce color or if the films were tinted. This movie is presumed lost. THE STEREOSCOPE AND THE On December 17, 1922, a 3D movie titled The BEGINNINGS OF PHOTOGRAPHY Man from M.A.R.S. was shown at the Selwyn Theater in New York City. This movie was shown with A stereoscope is usually a hand-held device for a system called ‘Teleview’,c using two interlocked viewing side-by-side 3D stereo images (see Figure 1). projectors, which alternated showing a left and right Such a device aids the viewer in fusing the images eye image. The projectors were linked to hand- into a standard 3D view. Although the principles of held viewers the audience used to actuate a shutter stereoscopic vision were understood, it was not until alternating the view between the audiences’ right and photography emerged that a viable method of pro- left eyes.13 The Teleview system was a forerunner duction of stereo images became available. By 1850 a of the liquid crystal shutter glasses for stereoscopic variety of photographic processes including tintypes, display. The Teleview system disappeared after the albumin, and daguerreotypes were developed. one time run of The Man from M.A.R.S. These were followed by a series of short films, Photographers around the world produced millions which primarily lasted until the period 1952–1954, of stereoscopic views between 1850 and 1930. Their when a number of feature length films were made popularity soared when Queen Victoria and Prince d,14 Albert received the gift of a stereoscopic viewer at using polarizing filter glasses. Best known among 14 the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1851. Soon after, the first era of 3D movies (that Zone calls the Era the American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes called for of Convergence, 1952–1985) were: the establishment of ‘special stereographic collections just as we have professional and other libraries’. • Bwana Devil—1952 Around the world, independent and entrepreneurial • Kiss Me Kate—1953 photographers broke into the growing market for illustrations of all types of subjects: local history • House of Wax—1953 and events, grand landscapes, foreign monuments, • Hondo—1953 charming genre scenes, portraits of notables and • urban architecture. War and disasters such as floods, Dial M for Murder—1954 fires, train-wrecks, and earthquakes were enormously • Creature from the Black Lagoon—1954 popular subjects. (New York Public Library10) Woods15 identifies approximately 540 3D films Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) together that were theatrically released with some 206 of those with business man Joseph L. Bates (1807–1886) released since 2007 and some 88 3D films including developed a popular hand-held stereo viewer in 1859. short films released between 1952 with Bwana Devil Holmes declined to patent his device because he felt up to 1956. The 1980s saw some resurgence in 3D that his invention was too simple and obvious.