21st century 3D technology is the third “Great Craze” over stereoscopy. The late 19th century introduced the stereoview to the masses, only to see its decline in the age of cinema. Hollywood resurrected the technology in the mid twentieth century for monster movies, launching a popular fad for plastic red and blue glasses. As Avatar and the Kinect mark the newest iteration of stereoscopic entertainment, this exhibit looks at centuries of popular three-dimension images and devices—some part of mass entertainment, some as niche applications of stereoscopic techniques.

Items in the exhibit range from familiar Viewmaster devices, to mid-20th century comics and viewers, to Zograscopes — 18th century lensed viewers made long before the discovery of stereoscopy. Pablo Garcia, curator and designer of the “3D Before Now” exhibition, is the founder and principal of POiNT, a collaborative and multidisciplinary research studio based in Pittsburgh. The items in the exhibit are of his design and from his own collection.