A group of people visited the Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics to see a stereoscopic viewer on a cathode-ray tube display: The design of the viewer was based on one built by Ortony at Imperial College.
The stereoscopic viewer fits over the face of a Ferranti display which is coupled to an Argus 500 computer. The design of the viewer is based on using polaroid sheets to allow selective viewing of one of the two displayed stereoscopic views of the image by each eye. A sheet of polaroid, orientated in one direction covers the top half of the screen and another sheet whose orientation differs by 90 covers the lower half of the screen. A semi-reflecting mirror is placed halfway up the screen normal to the screen. Two stereoscopic images with a vertical separation are drawn on the screen, the upper one inverted, and one views the upper image by reflection from the semi-reflecting sheet and the lower image by transmission through the sheet. Polaroid spectacles are worn by the user.
Views of molecules were displayed using this system and most people in the group could see a 3-dimensional image (diagram overleaf).
