Sterecon is a system for making 3-D reconstructions or measurements by tracing from stereopair images. The stereopair images may come directly from a microscope, such as a transmission or scanning electron microscope. Alternatively, the images may be created from a stack of thin slices, such as a confocal light microscopy depth series, an electron tomographic volume, or a set of serial histological slices. When the structure to be studied is thick or complex, a serial stack of stereoscopic images can be used. Objects are traced within the images, and their coordinates are entered into a line or contour database. The contour database can be used for 3-D structure measurement, and the contours can be displayed as a reconstruction. Sterecon has interfaces from other software which can generate the input images and to other software for further display and analysis. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.