Re: 2D -> 3D Conversions

[P3D Marvin Jones <72657.3276@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Translating a single 2D image into a 3D image requires the computer to
> recognize the *content* of the image in order to determine what the
> various shapes in the image are, which are connected and which are
> overlapping, and thus decide which elements would naturally be in the
> foreground and which in the background.  This requires reasoning and
> judgement.

Exactly. Every discussion of computers automatically converting 2D pictures into
3D begins with the same shaky premise -- that the computer will recognize Aunt
Tilly standing on the porch with Rover standing by his house in the background
and make at least preliminary depth decisions based on its knowledge of people
being larger than dogs, etc. But a picture is not a collection of discrete
objects, it is a mass of different colors and shades to which we ourselves bring
the experience to recognize images in the colored blobs. The computer DOESN'T
recognize Aunt Tilly, or Rover either. It sees 480 rows of 640 little tiny dots,
each of them of a slightly different color. Period. The picture could be of
Sally Rand or Mona Lisa or a Rorschach test. They're all the same to the
computer. It cannot begin to determine where the lawn lets off and Aunt Tilly
begins. It takes our own life-experience to recognize this little blob of pixels
as Aunt Tilly's head and that little blob of similar colored pixels right next
to it as the birdhouse 20 feet behind her.

There are a couple of computer programs that CLAIM to be able to convert 2D
pictures into 3D. They are unmitigated frauds, pure and simple. One called
3D-IT, for instance, used to sell for somewhere around $200 and came complete
with a booklet full of sci-fi techno-babble about secret government algorithms
and the years of confidential research that went into writing the program. All
it does is make a red copy of your image and a blue copy, and superimpose them
offset by a few pixels, giving you a perfectly flat image "floating" an inch or
two behind your screen. That's all it does -- nothing else. No secret government
algorithms. No mystical conversions. Last time I saw the program it was in a
remainder bin at CompUSA for $10. I hope nobody here shelled out $200 for it!


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