ThreeD

We have been experimenting with 3-D imaging, after viewing the rather impressive wiggle stereoscopy at cursivebuildings. The wiggle viewing method uses an animated GIF to alternate between left and right images, easy to view in a web browser with no additional hardware. Here is an example from Wikipedia Commons:

Wiggle stereogram

We use a single camera on a tripod, with a “standard slide bar” from Bogen Manfrotto for quickly moving the camera position approximately the spacing between your two eyeballs for left and right photos. camera mount slide bar

(Some photographers recommend a spacing of 1/30 the distance to the object photographed, and a few experiment with large distances for a hyper-stereo effect.)

Garden wiggle image
Garden wiggle stereograph

The open-source software ImageMagick may be used to create the animated GIF. A command line invocation to produce the animated GIF might look like:

convert -loop 0 -delay 20 -dispose None left.jpg right.jpg -layers Optimize stereo.gif

When the wiggle becomes tiresome, alternate methods for viewing stereographs are available. We haven’t mastered the cross-eyed viewing or parallel viewing methods requiring no hardware. We did find this lorgnette stereo card viewer comfortable, effective, and inexpensive.

Garden stereograph
Garden stereograph for lorgnette viewer or parallel technique

1 thought on “ThreeD”

  1. re: wiggle 3d. As a coder, please consider the following.

    What is the maximum frame rate in the wiggle toggle before the brain ceases to see 3-d. i.e. 60fps or 120fps or 10fps?

    Second, for 3d VIDEO recording, what is the presentation rate to perceive 3-d video with wiggle?

    Reply

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