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We are able to see the world in three dimensions because our brains combine the two slightly different images seen by each eye. 3D photography works the same way: a camera with two lenses presents to each eye an image made from a slightly different perspective.

Millions of 3D stereographs were produced from the 1850s until the 1930s. In a typical Victorian-era parlor, the wooden stereoscope and its cards would be passed from person to person, each, in turn, viewing the 3D scenes of wonders near and far.

With a digital process called anaglyph conversion, we may view the stereograph images in 3D without needing a stereoscope. Colors are assigned to the two separate images of the stereograph card: red for the left-eye-view, and cyan for the right-eye-view. The two images are then combined digitally. Then, using colored glasses, each eye sees only one image. The brain combines the two images, and we sense a three-dimensional scene of the historic Comstock.