Imagine looking at a picture on a printed page or computer screen, adjusting your eyes in a manner that most people can learn easily, and suddenly having objects pop out at you in vivid 3D.  Many people have already experienced this with the Magic Eye and related photos that were massively popular in the 90's.  But what is not so well known is that this single-image stereogram technology has come a long way since those early days.  The big breakthrough came when algorithms were discovered that could map textures onto the surface of single-image stereograms.  For an example, size the image below to be about 7 inches wide on your computer monitor.  If you know how to adjust your eyes for 3D vision, you will see this image expand toward you.

I have written what I believe is the only available book that delves deeply into stereogram algorithms, including complete C++ source code.  These algorithms can be used to great effect by artists to create works of art that are far beyond the crude stereograms of yesteryear.  Perhaps even more importantly, the ability to display depth maps in clear stereo using only a single printed image can be invaluable for scientific presentations.

To view the Table of Contents, click here.

To read my two-page introduction to single-image stereograms, click here.

To see and optionally purchase this book on Amazon dot com, click here.

To download a Zip file containing complete source code for all three of the texture-mapped stereogram algorithms, click here.

To download the Stereo program, which runs only in 64-bit Windows, click here.  For some unfathomable reason, GoDaddy often renames EXE files to MSI.  If this file downloads as MSI, just change it to EXE.

A final note... The interface of the Stereo program is pretty clunky because I am not a Windows API expert.  I know just enough to be dangerous.  If anyone out there has the desire and ability to repackage the program more elegantly, I would be interested in talking about it and helping as much as I am able.  It would be wonderful to have a more elegant container for these algorithms.