A new spherical stereo panorama, photographed from the rooftop of the 301-meters high "Moscow City" tower — the tallest building in Europe — is now available on our website. All you need to view this photo is a pair of red-and-blue (or red-and-cyan) stereo glasses. See below for shopping suggestions.

Stereo images have become a part of our daily life. Almost every cinema theatre features 3D movies these days. Magazines publish stereographic photographs; and photo exhibitions show stereographic images. For example: http://gorshkov-sergey.livejournal.com/9026.html#cutid1

A pair of special stereo eyeglasses is required to view such images. There are around a dozen types of stereo glasses on the market, but the most common one is the polarized 3D glasses, which are usually used to watch 3D television and in movie theatres. Another popular type is the red-and-blue anaglyph glasses, which you will need in our case.

Anaglyph is a way of achieving stereo-effect with a stereo-pair of differently filtered colored 2D images, one for each eye. Special (anaglyphic) eyeglasses, with color filters in place of diopter lenses (usually red for the left eye, and blue/cyan for the right eye) are required to achieve a stereoscopic 3D effect.

Stereoscopic picture is a pair of two complementary colored images: red filter admits only information in the red color channel to the left eye, blocking the blue; and another one delivers visual information to the right eye in the blue channel. So each eye can see a picture in its own color.

The downside of the anaglyphic stereo imaging is, first of all, poor color rendition, quick eye fatigue and poor opposite image blocking resulting in image separation.

On the positive side, red-and-blue eyeglasses are simple and relatively inexpensive. No additional equipment is required for image viewing as well, just a pair of anaglyph glasses.

You will need to get a pair of red-and-blue glasses to view stereo photo panorama shot from the "City of Capitals" complex of skyscrapers. You can easily buy red-and-blue eyeglasses in your region. If you have never seen red-and-blue glasses, you may want to see how they look like:

There are plenty of online shops with red-and-blue glasses such as eBay and DealExtreme.

Some magazines have red-and-blue stereo glasses enclosed in each copy of the magazine. In Russia glasses are available with october issue of National Geographic (http://www.nat-geo.ru/archive/98/) magazine. So by purchasing the magazine you will get a chance to read some interesting photo illustrated articles and also view our online "City of Capitals" stereo panorama without spending your time on shopping for anaglyphic glasses.

26 October 2010