JPS to PBM Converter

JPS (JPEG Stereo) is a stereoscopic 3D image format that stores a left-eye and right-eye view pair within a single JPEG-compressed file, developed by VRex, Inc. around 1997 for use with stereoscopic displays and viewers. A JPS file is technically a standard JPEG file containing a side-by-side stereo pair — the left and right perspective images are placed horizontally adjacent within a single frame, with the full image width being twice the individual view width. The file uses standard JPEG compression and can be opened by any JPEG-compatible viewer (which will show the side-by-side pair as a single wide image), but stereo-aware applications parse the image into its left and right components for proper 3D presentation. JPS files can be viewed with dedicated stereoscopic software, anaglyph viewers (generating red-cyan images for colored glasses), autostereoscopic displays, VR headsets, and hardware like NVIDIA 3D Vision or passive 3D monitors. The format gained renewed interest with the consumer 3D photography boom of the late 2000s and early 2010s, when cameras like the Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1/W3 captured stereo pairs natively. One advantage is backward compatibility: because JPS uses standard JPEG encoding, the files work with existing JPEG infrastructure — they can be transmitted, stored, thumbnailed, and even viewed (as flat side-by-side images) without any special software. The format's simplicity is another practical strength — no specialized container or codec is required, and any tool that can crop and display JPEG images can extract individual views. JPS files are supported by StereoPhoto Maker, ImageMagick, and various 3D photo viewers.