Stereoscopy basics for the STEREO mission

Abstract

We discuss some basic principles of stereoscopy and their relevance to the reconstruction of coronal loops. The aim of the paper is to make the solar physicist familiar with basic stereoscopy principles and to give hints how they may apply to the analysis of data from the forthcoming STEREO mission. We disucss the geometry of the solar coronal stereo problem, give the basic principles of a tie-point reconstruction algorithm and consider ambiguities and resolution errors. Finally we mention extensions to plain stereoscopy such as a third view, a tomography-like approach and how magnetic field information can be used to improve the reconstruction.