MFC photos – Viewing stereo images

Sample .mpo image (cacti)

The stereo images in this collection are all saved in the Multi Picture Object (.mpo) format, with each file containing two JPEG images (the left and the right view).

To see a full-size image, click on a thumbnail.
To save a full-size image, ‘save link as’ or ‘save target as’ (most browsers allow this on right click on the thumbnail); note that stereo images should be saved with extension .mpo – your browser may have changed that to .jpg.

Viewing with standard image viewers

Since the ‘wrapper’ for the two images is compatible with the common .jpg format, it is possible to view the picture with a simple image viewer (you may have to change the file extension to .jpg for the viewer to accept it). In this case (unless the viewer supports multiple images):

you will see just the left-hand view
if you make any changes to the image then usually only the left-hand image is altered
if you save a changed image then only the left-hand view is saved and the 3D information (the right-hand view) is then lost.

Viewing in 3D

There are several ways of viewing stereo images; a brief summary is given below; for more details, a good place to start is the Wikipedia article on Stereoscopy ».

An effective program for presenting and working with 3D images is the free StereoPhoto Maker », which supports the .mpo format and allows the 3D images to be manipulated and viewed in a variety of ways. (Its interface is a bit quirky and often differs from its Help, however.)

Common ways of viewing 3D images include:

Sample side-by-side image (cactus)

side-by-side – the two images are presented on a monitor or printed next to each other:

direct view – some people can view 3D images by viewing wide-eyed or cross-eyed
stereoscopes – a device with two prisms and/or lenses which make it easier to view side-by-side images.

Sample Anaglyph (Lago Ercina)

anaglyph – the images are combined into a single image to be viewed using glasses which usually have a red filter over the left eye and a cyan filter over the right eye:

the images are processed (e.g., by StereoPhoto Maker) to form an anaglyph which can be viewed immediately with the appropriate filter glasses or saved as a .jpg image (here is an example); the colours in anaglyphs are affected by the filtering – so anaglyphs work best for images that are monochrome or mostly greens and greys.

3D monitor or TV – many display devices support 3D display for viewing with special glasses; again, StereoPhoto Maker can be used for presenting the pictures. There are two common technologies:

passive – the left and right images are presented on alternating rows of the screen and are viewed with polarized glasses (similar to those used in cinemas); this loses half the vertical resolution but the passive glasses are lightweight and inexpensive
active – the images are presented in successive frames and active ‘shutter’ glasses are used to switch synchronously with the frames so that each eye sees alternate frames; this requires a special graphics card which can refresh the monitor at 120 Hz (twice the usual rate) and battery powered glasses (which some people find heavy and others find cause flicker).

Many sites on the web describe these (and other) viewing methods.

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This page was last edited on 2013-12-10 by mfc.