BTAA-GIN Blog

Featured Item in the Collection: Aerial Stereograms   What is the item? Long before VR headsets hit the tech market, analog stereograms allowed users to view far off places in 3D. The Aerial Stereogram collection at the University of Illinois Map Library contains digitized photos designed to help students interpret aerial photography. Each stereogram is a set of photos taken from slightly different angles that, when viewed through a stereoscope, appear 3D to the viewer. The aerial photos in the stereogram collection were taken between 1936 and 1970 and show natural landforms as well as man-made features. The collection primarily consists of U.S. government photography. Most of the photos are of the United States, although the collection includes a few taken from Canada, Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, and Japan. The collection also includes a digitized catalog with a description of each photo as well as indexes by location, subject, and date.   What BTAA Library submi