Dead Media Beat: Brian May, Queen guitarist, astronomer and Victorian stereoscopist

Dr May knows how to keep himself busy

By Howard Timberlake
13 December 2018

Stereoscopy is a Victorian technique for creating an illusion of depth in an image.

At its simplest, it involves viewing two images side-by-side that through a special viewer which turns them into a 3D image.

At one point during the late 1800s it was a worldwide phenomenon – bringing virtual reality-like experiences of world-famous locations and people into millions of homes.

But it has gradually waned, especially since computers and video games brought a different kind of ‘reality’ to our living rooms.

Now Queen’s Brian May, inspired by his own childhood experience of taking 3D images, wants to bring it back.

The books referenced in the video are Queen in 3-D: Updated Edition by Brian May, and Mission Moon 3-D by Dave Eicher and Brian May.