Re: Computer images in competition

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Eric Goldstein  writes:
>................... snip  ......................
>With the caviat that stereo imaging is a highly resolution dependent
>medium... How are folks dealing with inputing and outputing? What
>resolutions are we discussing here? To my knowledge, most scanners are
>prepress devices and are thus geared to 2700ish dpi, which is
>substantially less than the resolution of the original chromes. Also, to
>my knowledge it takes a highly specialized setup, such as a film process
>camera, to get these computer images back onto film with anything
>approaching even that reduced resolution...
>
>

As far as I can tell stereo imaging is NOT resolution dependent!!! I can
easily observe depth that is very satisfying in the arrangement of a few
dots, or I can view much more complex images at computer screen resolution,
or I can see depth in stereo photos of either slides or prints. That covers
a very broad range of resolutions. Each of these areas clearly display depth
where there is parallax present. Visible parallax is the bottom line in
stereo imaging, for any resolution.

The area where a problem arises is when you have a stereo photo with
extremely small amounts of parallax, but seeable with the eyes, and hope to
convert that to a digital image of lower resolution than the existing
parallax. Of course the results will be less than desirable. To me, the
image is somewhat undesirable to begin with if it's parallax is so slight as
to be that hard to determine. That's why I and many others have a tendency
to use hyper stereo shots in some cases. It amplifies available parallax,
insuring that depth information isn't lost in subsequent format
translations. Use too much hyper, or in the wrong context and it works
against you. But it is a valid technique for capturing parallax. Any really
good stereo image with sufficient parallax for satisfying viewing can be
converted to computer images and viewed on a monitor, currently the weakest
aspect of electronic imaging. 

As for getting computer images to film, it's a matter of budget only. Need
higher resolution, then compute it. They manage to get satisfying on-film
resolution from totally computer generated sequences for large segments of
today's IMAX 3D films, which are definitely state of the art. It all comes
down to scale. If you have a small computer, work on smaller images, but at
any resolution you desire. Bigger images take longer and faster computers
help a lot, but they aren't essential. Your choice of output device
determines the resolution of your work. 3D in many forms is available in all
of these choices. 

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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