Viewing 3d pictures

There are two ways of viewing stereo pictures: parallel and cross-eyed.

Basically, to see 3d, you need to feed two different images to your two eyes. This page will show you those two images. It's up to you to direct each of your eyes to a different image.

Parallel

Select this by clicking on the icon.

To view in parallel, look throughthe screen as if you were focussing on the horizon. the two images will drift over each other and eventually, if you are lucky, they will lock together. Then you need to focus on what each eye can see. It should be in 3d.

Parallel viewing means your eyeballs are each pointing straight ahead, the left at the left picture, the right at the right. This can only be possible with smaller images where the centres are no further apart than your eyes. not many of us can make eyeballs point outwards.

Cross-eyed

Select this by clicking on the icon.

Cross your eyes so the left is looking at the right image and the right at the left. Much more easily, the images will float together and lock. Now focus and you have 3d... and a slight feeling of unease in your eye muscles. Don't do it for too long.

Cross-eyed viewing is less satisfactory because there is an illusion of looking at something very close and very small - even when the subject is a landscape.

Viewers

There are many viewers on the market for looking at stereo images. These consist of a pair of flattish prisms. Effectively they bend your gaze outwards.

Before using a viewer, click on the icon.

Cookies

The method you choose will be saved in a cookie (if you have them enabled) and will be restored if you return to this site.

Slide show

Clicking on the icon will show all the images in this album in sequence

Please only operate this for short periods. I don't like the idea of visitors to my site gazing with strained crossed eyes at their monitors for minutes on end...

Changing the size of the image

Clicking on the icon will make the images larger. Clicking on the icon will make the images smaller.

Larger images are of course better quality. The source images on this site are at most 1000 pixels tall; so there is a limit.

There is an even tighter constraint in what you can do with your eyes. The larger the images the more strain there is in viewing, either parallel (where there is a definite limit to the spread of your gaze) or cross-eyed where muscular strain should be carefully monitored.

With an appropriate viewer, the bigger, the better.

The pictures can only be made as wide as the space on the page; so maximise your browser first.

Cookies

You should adjust this until you are comfortable; then leave it. Your selected setting will be saved in a cookie (if you have them enabled) and will be restored if you return to this site.