Home at last & Special Visit

[P3D dalia miller <dddalia@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone!

Andrew and I [with the cats] made it home, finally.  We took our time
getting back, stopping to visit family and seeing the sites and, of course,
photographing.  I'm anxious to see how the pictures of Carhendge turn out.
This place was a take-off of Stonehendge, but with cars.  I think it was in
Nebraska - it was certainly after Kansas and before Wyoming. Much better
than the Cadillac farm near Amillo, Texas. 

Our best visit was with the co-inventor of the "prism" stereo - Pompey M. -
the man mentioned at the NSA banquet.  For those interested, here's some
details.

Marcus and Pompey {brothers} developed the idea of using a prism to take
stereo pictures in 1941.  Unfortunately, WWII prevented them from going
ahead with their project.  After the War, they approached KODAK with their
idea.  KODAK kindly took the patent with a payment of $1,000 per year to
Pompey, but did nothing with the device.  Both Pompey and Marcus never
worked for KODAK directly as they were Professors at a New Jersey Technical
College.

After the patent expired, Pompey and his brother decided to produce the
device themselves and did so in the 60s - just as the 3d fever was waning.
They sold the "taking" unit and the viewer for around $40, but
unfortunately, didn't sell very many.  They even developed a projection unit
to be used on a 35mm slide projector.  Some years later, they sold them
exclusively to Olden camera.  I don't know how long Olden sold the units,
but I did see an Olden Catalog from 1975 and the units including projection
one were still being sold.  After a while, the demand was zero.

Pompey said that the project never made any money for them.  But somehow
that wasn't important to him.  He was very proud of the accomplishment and
credited his now deceased brother with having all the brains and coming up
with the prism idea.  Pompey would frequently show school children his
viewers with slides attached as a demonstration of stereo photography.  He
still had these viewers with slides in his basement.  

Today, the molds are gone and only some unassembled parts remain.  Perhaps
some units can be put together.  I'm working on it, but only time will tell
whether it can be done or not. I truly believe it is an excellent product as
an alternative format, due to the landscape format and the alignment of the
stereo pair because of the prism. It's not the ordinary garden-variety
beamsplitter or should I say framesplitter. Yes, a technical article for
INSIDE 3D would indeed be very interesting!

I had some units for sale in my Winter Catalog 1996 and they are described
on page 33. I don't have any right now, sorry.  Wish I did.

I will be at the Oakland Stereo Club meeting in Sept (I promise) and I'll
bring along a unit to look at for those interested.  I will also be bringing
the HOT new device from John Dukes - the  "Projection Previewer."   

Because this posting has taken so long, I'll end now, but as soon as I can,
I'll be back to tell you about the "Great Contura Find" and "My Trade Fair
Nightmare at NSA Rochester" [Bill D. had nothing to do with this and he
can't take the blame]. 

P.S. As for reports from the NSA convention of my army of soldiers equipped
with radios, heck, that's just my family keeping in touch.

Dalia
3-D from Dalia
supplier of high quality 3D equipment - new & used


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