ALANROGERCOOK AUTOSTEREOGRAMS
viewing technique
The following images are referred to as autostereograms because they may be viewed stereoptically without any auxiliary viewing aids. However there is a specific viewing technique that must be mastered to achieve the necessary perceptual fusion of the two images into a coherent 3-D image. The two images represent a stereo-pairing with left-right parallax (i.e., a lateral viewing displacement) just like your two eyes provide in normal observations. In this case the two images have an opposite left-right correspondence (i.e., the right-eye image is on the left side, and visa versa) so that the corresponding points of the two images may be visually superimposed by a simple crossing of your eyes. This avoids the issue of needing to control the interpupillary distance and allows the images to be larger than the typical 2 1/2" of human parallax and provides ocular convergence depth cues somewhat like normal viewing though a little exaggerated. Make sure to keep your eyes level with the left-right displacement of corresponding points. One way to help in your self-initiation of learning this cross-eye (hyper-convergent) viewing technique is to form an approximately 2" quasi-round framing opening with your hands about 6" - 8" in fornt of your face while viewing the autostereogram. This will help you to appropriately cross your eyes by the constraint of the opening and will obscure the distraction of the non- overlapping parts of the image-pair.  

orchid with jade

(rollover) blossom detail

Notre-Dame du haut de Ronchamp
by Le Corbusier
1955
view from the southwest

Villa Savoie at Poissy
by Le Corbusier
1929-31
view from the south

Vaux-le-Vicomte
by Le Vau, Le Notre, & Lebrun
c. 1661
view from the south
Versailles -La Allee Royal
& La Grande Lac
by Le Notre
c. 1667
view looking ENE
Notre Dame
Ilse de la Cite, Paris
12th century
central portal
Notre Dame
Ilse de la Cite, Paris
12th century
southern nave buttresses
Notre Dame
Ilse de la Cite, Paris
south side of choir/chancel
- flying buttresses
Notre Dame
Ilse de la Cite, Paris
view from the SSE
Fontaine de Medicis
Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
1624
Prague Orloj (Town Hall Clock)
by Hanus
c. 1490;
renovated by Taborsky
(1552-72)
St. Paul's Cathedral
London
by Christopher Wren
1675 - 1709
view from the Whispering Gallery looking east into the choir
13 Lincoln's Inn Fields
London W.C. 2
by Sir John Soane
early 19th century
view looking east and upward towards the dome from the crypt
Hill House - Drawing Room
by Charles Rennie Mackintosh
1902-03
Devil's Tower, Wyoming
view from the SSW
Frozen Fountain
Mammoth Cave, Kentucky

Manhatten
 1977
north from the Empire State Building
Mont St. Michel
This is a four-dimensional view with a temporal parallax of about 30 seconds; a cloud reversed the lighting of the island village and the foreground sands.
Mont St. Michel
This 4-D view has a temporal parallax of about 6 hours; the image on the left was recorded secondly, after the tide had advanced.
The Veil Nebula
This autostereogram has been synthesized and does not reflect any true parallax of view, the emmision nebula and a few of the brighter stars were artificially displaced in a copy of an astrophotograph to create the illusion of visible steropesis.
Florence:
Uffizzi Gallery, Palazzo Vecchio, il loggia dei Lanzi, & il Duomo
San Lorenzo
 Florence, Italy
by Brunelleschi
1421 - 1425
The PSEUDO - HOLOGRAM I have proposed (ACADIA Conference, 1995) a form of autostereogram that provides an interactive display that allows the observer to selectively explore different points of view towards spatial displays and even differing degrees of parallax. The image below is a pseudo-hologram of Rietveld's red blue and zig-zag chairs. By using the cross-convergent (cross-eyed) viewing technique, one may scan the field of images getting varied 3-D images of the pair of chairs including the possibilities of diagonal parallax pairings and extreme covergent pairings (where the observer visually associates the corresponding points of images that are further from each other than those immediately adjacent).  

pseudo-hologram of:


Red Blue
&
Zig-zag
chairs

Ritual House: this autostereogrm is from a computer derived virtual model with image editing using Photoshop where I inserted myself (in the green shirt)
More images to come!  
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