Why 3D?
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stereo - solid and  scopeo - I view

3D has been largely popularized as a form of 'trick photography'. But how does 3D work? It's deceptively simple.  A 3D camera simultaneously takes a picture from two slightly different positions - the distance separating your eyes which are about 2.5 inches apart. When the two images are seen again by each eye through a viewer or with special glasses the brain interprets everything to be as it originally was  - and so the 'Realism' is created. The images are 'merged' in your brain. 

In his book, 'Stereoscopic Photography' first published in 1926, A. W. Judge writes,

"The value of photography to mankind depends almost entirely upon the truthful records which it gives of different subjects as the eye sees them. Leaving out of these considerations the question of photographic manipulation for artistic, or impressional effects, it will be evident that the ordinary, flat photograph does not depict the subject as the eyes perceive it, but only as one eye does, and that it loses thereby a good deal of its value and interest. The ordinary photograph, invaluable as it is for many purposes, fails to provide a truthful impression of the picture seen by the eyes."

It may come as a surprise to you that the 3D process was first demonstrated by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1838 . And that the work of Sir David Brewster of the same era is the basis for much of the present form of stereoscopy - and LASERS. But that's another story (www.lasershows.com).