Hands-On Activities

D.I.Y. Victorian Virtual Reality

Make your own stereoscope and experience the nineteenth-century predecessor to today’s virtual reality technology.

Stereograph comprising two images of a woman sitting in a Victorian parlor

Stereograph of a young woman using a stereoscope, the popular 3D technology of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Note the cabinet of stereographs to her right, offered by publishers Underwood and Underwood. Courtesy of Library of Congress

Seventeen-year-old Palmer Luckey built his first prototype for a virtual reality head-mounted display in his parents’ garage. Just a few years later, he debuted the Oculus Rift headset at the 2012 E3 gaming conference. The device’s small size, high quality, and relatively low cost reinvigorated the video game industry’s largely stagnant efforts to bring fully immersive, 3D gaming to the mass market. A huge Kickstarter campaign to fund further development followed, adding to the VR buzz.

In 2014, Google responded with the launch of Google Cardboard, an inexpensive alternative to the Oculus Rift that requires only a smartphone and a special cardboard-and-plastic viewer to experience VR. The same year, Facebook bought the Oculus VR company. In a statement announcing the acquisition, Mark Zuckerberg wrote, “The incredible thing about the technology is that you feel like you’re actually present in another place with other people. People who try it say it’s different from anything they’ve ever experienced in their lives.”

Handheld stereoscope resting on its stand, holding a stereograph. The stereoscope is wood, with an engraved metal visor for shielding the eyes.

A stereoscope ready for viewing a stereograph. This handheld model is a Holmes stereoscope, based on a design created by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1861. Courtesy of the University of North Carolina University Library

Step 1

TUTORIAL 

Stereograph:

If you plan build a stereoscope, you’ll want something to look at! I suggest starting with this step. With a stereograph in hand, you can better test and tweak your stereoscope during the building process.

There are several options for creating your stereograph. There are thousands of original stereograph images available online, including collections from the National Museum of American History, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. You can print one of these out to the correct size and adhere it to a backing board to hold it firm. Here are the measurements I used for the pictures on my card:

Stereo images of Mark Twain, wearing a hat and overcoat and smoking a cigar, standing beside a young boy wearing a suit, on a rug in front of an ivy-covered building. The individual images measure 3 1/8 inches tall and 3 inches wide.

Measurements for making your own stereograph. The photo shows Mark Twain, wearing a hat and overcoat and smoking a cigar, stands beside a young boy wearing a suit, on a rug in front of an ivy-covered building. Courtesy of National Museum of American History

If you would like to make your own original stereograph, you will use these same measurements when printing your photos. There are two options for taking the stereograph pictures. First, you can take the two photos by holding your camera steady, shifting your weight to your left foot, taking a picture, then shifting your weight to the right foot and taking a second photo. This approach will simulate the view from your left and right eye. For a more precise stereograph, take advantage of a smartphone app. I have no particular affiliation with the product, but did try and like “3DHolicCam” (available for iPhones).

Stereoscope:

Now that you have a stereograph, let’s make something to view it with.

4 photos comparing a stereoscope with the homemade version. Top left and right: side views of stereoscope and homemade version, respectively. Bottom left and right: view of viewfinder for stereoscope and homemade version, respectively.

My handmade stereoscope and the original device that served as a model. © Smithsonian; photo by Mary Kate Robbett

Step 2

Materials: 

  • Reading glasses (ideally of a high magnification. I used a pair with 2.5x)
  • Cardboard
  • Scissors and/or utility knife (helpful for cutting out the eye pieces)
  • Hot glue gun
  • Black construction paper

Step 3

Instructions: 

I began with a tutorial by Make: magazine to create the lens piece for my stereoscope. The linked article explains how to repurpose reading glasses into a simple stereoscopic viewer. I didn’t have all the suggested tools; where the author called for drilling and screwing the lenses, I instead glued the pieces of the glasses to an angled piece of cardboard. My final stereoscope worked just fine with this adjustment.

After making the lenses, I tested them with my stereograph. I held the lenses up to my eyes with one hand and the stereograph out in front of me with the other. When you try this, looking through the lenses should feel like crossing your eyes, and they should force the two images to converge on one another. You may need to move the card closer or further away from your face to get the images to overlap and focus. With my first attempt at the lenses, I found that the pictures were not overlapping at all. So, I separated the glasses pieces and tried a different angle on the cardboard connecting them.

Even after this tweak, I still didn’t achieve perfect stereopsis. The images partially converged, but my eyes took in too much of the periphery around the stereograph and I found it difficult to get the illusion to work. To resolve the issue, I built a simple cardboard housing, modeled on a stereoscope we have at the museum.

Here’s how you can do the same:

  • Cut cardboard into the three shapes shown below (parts A, B, and C), using the suggested measurements.
Diagram of measurements for stereoscope housing part A: 4.5 inches wide, 3 inches high, with two 1.5 inch wide rectangles in the center, spaced 1 inch apart.

Measurements for making Part A of the stereoscope housing.

 

Diagram of measurements for stereoscope housing part B: 3 inches wide, 2.7 5inches high.

Measurements for making Part B of the stereoscope housing.

 

Diagram of measurements for stereoscope housing part C: .5 inches wide, 3 inches high.

Measurements for making Part C of the stereoscope housing.

 

  • Attach Part B to Part A. You’ll glue the thin edge of B perpendicular to Part A, along the center line between the two eye holes.
  • Attach Part C to Part B. You’ll glue the flat side of C perpendicular to Part B. From above, it should now look like:
Diagram showing the I-shaped arrangement of Parts A, B, and C of the stereoscope. A is the top crosspiece; B is the vertical; C is the bottom crosspiece

The assembled arrangement of Parts A, B, and C.

  • Cut a fourth piece of cardboard in the shape shown below (part D), using the suggested measurements.
Diagram for Part D of the stereoscope, with Parts A, B, and C inserted. Part D is shaped like a dart pointing down. It is 10 inches tall and 4.5 inches wide and the bottom 5.5 inches narrow to approx. 1 inch to form a handle.

Measurements for making Part D of the stereoscope housing.

  • Attach the combined parts A-B-C to part D, in the position shown by the dotted lines above. You now have your cardboard frame.
  • Glue the lenses to frame. Attach them to part A. I also glued a few small scraps of cardboard underneath the lenses to support and hold them in place.  
  • Cut a 3.5” by 10” strip of black construction paper. Curve the paper over the lenses and cardboard piece with eye holes. When looking into the device, the paper should extend back from the lenses toward your face. It will help to block your peripheral vision. Glue the short sides of the paper to the bottom of the cardboard frame.
  • There will be a few spots where the paper curves above the top and side edges of the cardboard piece with eye holes. Cut and attach scraps of construction paper to fill in these spots and keep the light from getting through.
  • Test your new stereoscope!