Curiosity Rover in 3D

This stereoscopic anaglyph image was created from a left and right stereo pair of images of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's rover, Curiosity. The scene appears three dimensional when viewed through red-blue glasses with the red lens on the left.

3D (three-dimensional) means that an object has width, height, and depth (a 2D object does not have depth and thus is flat).

Because our eyes are spaced apart, each eye sees the same 2D view, but from a slightly different perspective. The brain puts the 2D image from each eye together, giving us a 3D view of the world. That is, we can perceive depth.

The images on this site are called "anaglyphs." Anaglyphs simulate the way our eyes work.

In an anaglyph, the same 2D picture is overlapped, but spaced slightly apart. One of the overlapped images is colored cyan, and one red.

When you wear 3D glasses, the lenses only allow the red image to enter the left eye and the cyan image to enter the right eye. The visual cortex of your brain fuses the two images, and you perceive the image in 3D.

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