New theory on the 1950s downfall of 3D

[P3D <rdi@xxxxxxx>]

After going to the NSA convention, a new theory to the downfall of 3D
in the 1950s has occurred to me.  At the convention, I looked through maybe a 
hundred or so old interesting scenic Realist format slides for sale, mostly without 
putting them in a viewer.  I finally picked four to buy, all in different style mounts, 
all by different photographers.  Guess what?  3 out of the 4 are mounted incorrectly or 
otherwise unviewable for one reason or another...  one actually had severe VERTICAL 
chip misalignment, like 1/8" off; another had chips mounted wrong (with emulsion side
toward the viewer- one can only guess what the correct orientation of the original
scene was; at least it isn't pseudo); another looks great through a hand viewer but 
is totally unprojectable because it (glass/aluminum mounted, even) had been cooked by 
a projector, ruining the polarization characteristics.

So, here's my theory (admittedly/probably faulty due to such a small sample
taken, but what the heck, two cents for free ain't bad):  when the teeming 
millions got involved in the 3D craze, they weren't dedicated scholars like 
ourselves who study the photo-3d archival tomes for two years before buying 
a camera, then take 5 hours to carefully mount the first roll- instead, they heard
about this hip 3D stuff on the radio, jumped in the DeSoto, ran downtown to 
their local camera store, plunked down a month's salary, and bought a Realist 
& a roll of film.  They shot the roll, had it developed, and schlocked the frames
into mounts in 10 minutes.  The result was maybe 80% complete unviewable rejects,
with accompanying severe dissatisfaction and disgust in the whole 3D thing.  After
a couple rolls with similar results, and with some cooked in the projector for 
2-3 minutes as "focusing/alignment slides" (heh heh, try and use a projector aligned with 
a mismounted slide), the the camera and projector went into the closet, never to be 
unearthed until the 1990s in an estate sale (note this also ties together with and
explains why All Realists Are Still Working- they were hardly used 
to start with! :-) ).

I was just amazed that I found 3 views with bad problems out of the random
selection I made.

---
Rick Inzero                                     
Northern Telecom, Inc.                          
Rochester, NY                                   rdi@xxxxxxx

I free-view lenticulars for a 6-D effect!!


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