Stereoscope
Estereoscopio
- Date
- 1838 · confidence high
- Place
- London (King's College), England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Charles Wheatstone (1838); David Brewster (lenticular stereoscope, 1849)
- People
- 👤 Charles Wheatstone1802–1875👤 David Brewster1781–1868
- Field
- Communication
What it is
A device that presented each eye with a slightly different image to produce a sense of depth, demonstrating binocular vision. Combined with photography, it became the domestic visual entertainment of the 19th century.
Wheatstone presented it to the Royal Society in 1838 using drawings; Brewster's lenticular version (1849, manufactured by Duboscq in Paris) was the one that became popular.
What it led to
- The stereoscopic-view craze after the Great Exhibition of 1851
- Virtual tourism and visual education
- Photogrammetry and 3D vision
- Virtual reality (concept)
Built on
- Daguerreotype1839
- Theory of binocular vision
- optics of mirrors and prisms
Made possible
- Lippmann's integral photography1908
- Stereoscopic photography
- Photogrammetry
- View-Master and VR viewers