A moving experience

January 26, 2012 4:38 AM

Four years ago, Joshua Heineman (previously) started posting animated GIFs made from turn of the century stereoscope photos, bringing this early 3D technique back to life. Now he's teamed with NYPL Labs to create an interface to let you make your own GIFs and 3D anaglyphs from the 40,000 digitized stereographs in the collections of the New York Public Library. (Background from the NYT)
posted by Horace Rumpole (8 comments total)

You can also follow updates and highlights from the project on Twitter at @nypl_stereo.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:44 AM on January 26, 2012

This is awesome! Is there a way to make the center of one frame higher than the other?
posted by gubo at 5:12 AM on January 26, 2012

It's not as easy as it looks. I tried it on several photos and even when I got the image to stabilize in the 'sweet spot,' I didn't see much in the way of 3D effect.
posted by crunchland at 5:36 AM on January 26, 2012

Crunchland: I'm part of the team at NYPL that built the Stereogranimator. The animated gif 3d effect doesn't work for all of them, but if you've got a pair of red/blue 3d glasses it'll absolutely work.
posted by e1presidente at 6:05 AM on January 26, 2012 [1 favorite]

Whoa.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:34 AM on January 26, 2012

I have to honestly say I prefer crossing my eyes to watching the jiggy GIF.
posted by JJ86 at 6:43 AM on January 26, 2012

I have to honestly say I prefer crossing my eyes to watching the jiggy GIF.

I did this with old Viewmasters years ago (self), and I think they've got the speed way too fast. A little slower, with a motion-blur in between, looks slick.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:11 AM on January 26, 2012

Joshua's a great guy too - I'm glad to see him blowing up lately. He's done some really interesting things. Here's an article he wrote for HuffPo on his thoughts on this project.
posted by doteatop at 9:24 AM on January 26, 2012