Viewing images in 3D harkens back to a fundamental yearning that men and women have also had: the desire to be enchanted. In the case of stereo 3D, this involves appreciating the beauty of reality and by slipping off into a dreamy state. Indeed, aren't memories of past events and wishes for the future perceived three-dimensionally?

What is certain is that people only appreciate the real world spatially - in three dimensions - when both eyes are fixated on the same object from slightly varying angles. How the brain processes images is based on the distance between your eyes. The brain forms the complete, 3D image by composing the two partial images from the right and left eyes.

In practice, it is also possible to deceive the human brain by artificially producing the two views, one for the right eye and one for the left eye, which is known as image separation. If the quality of the artificial views is good enough, the brain reconstructs a three-dimensional image.

Before we explore the various aspects and techniques of 3D vision, we should first explain certain terms that are often used confusingly.