Civil War Stereographs
2011 marked the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War. In a special issue, The Atlantic presented a collection of stereo photographs from the era. Alan Taylor’s introduction to the stereographs explains that
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. Photographers also made extensive use of stereo photography, bringing images to the public in three dimensions, for those with access to a stereoscopic viewer.
In its own collection of stereoviews, the Civil War Trust says that about 70 percent of all documentary photographs of the war were shot in stereo. The Library of Congress website has 2,559 Civil War stereographs online, though few have been converted to anaglyph.
Martian Terrain in 3D Relief
There’s a lot of great exploration in process at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Lab, like their High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment—HiRise for short. The HiRise project’s enormous photo gallery houses nearly 5,000 anaglyph images of Mars’ landscape.
Space anaglyphs are some of the most common and most awesome online, so if your interests range beyond Mars, check out NASA’s collection, which ranges from the Apollo missions to New Horizons’ Pluto flyby.
HiRise’s images and many of NASA’s were created from true stereo pairs. A few others are artistic extrapolations from single images. But as these anaglyph images and 3D animations of outer space by Finnish astrophotographer J-P Metsävainio demonstrate, those artistic renderings are quite awe-inspiring, too.
Tour the International Space Station
Here’s a space item that warrants its own Wonder on the Web item: Thanks to astronaut Don Pettit and his 3D camera, you can take a “floating” tour of NASA’s International Space Station. Pettit made the film in 2012 during Expedition 31. Highlights include: astronauts floating around the station and going through those cool-looking portals, a soaring orchestral soundtrack, and a view of the earth from above. Fun fact: the crew of Expedition 31 captured the first SpaceX Dragon cargo craft to visit the station. According to NASA, “this was the first time a commercial company accomplished this kind of space operation.” SpaceX launched its eighth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-8) in April—you can watch webcast footage of the launch here (though sadly, not in 3D).
The Canary Islands in 3D
This ten-minute video showcases the diverse landscapes of the Canary Islands' national parks: Caldera de Taburiente, Garajonay, Teide, and Timanfaya. This kind of thing would be especially awesome in an IMAX version, but it’s impressive even on your computer screen. (Plus, the music is not bad, and that’s a great deal more than can be said for most of the anaglyph videos we found on the internet.) Check out Lonely Planet for some intriguing details about the mysterious history of the Canaries.
Anaglyphs for Days
Flickr: a vast depository of anaglyph photography. Tomato plants, horse races, spiders, Abe Lincoln, biplanes…it’s all right here. Have fun, everybody. And if you find something cool, please share it on our Facebook page for Behemoth members! (Which you can still join, by the way—just click here, and include your Facebook email address in the body of the email.)
