Re: Lents and Cents

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 03:30:31 -0500
>From: P3D Gabriel Jacob writes:
>
>Paul Talbot writes
>
>>I had not previously heard of the distinction between "Layered Depth"
>>and "Full Depth."  I am sure the eagle picture described earlier must
>>be full depth; I suspect the macaw picture might be layered depth.
>
>I am not an expert either but will attempt to shed some (poloarized ;-)) 
>light on it. Yes your quite right, the eagle is full depth. As for the macaw,
>it would be hard to say. First as you have concluded, all layered depth
>really is, is the cut out cardboard effect. This was done recently with the
>McDonald's Hockey lenticular cards. This is done because either they only
>had a 2D source, or was to much trouble (or again cost) to convert from 2D
>to 3D using computers or it was originally full depth but the image 
>resolution poor or stereobase was to short.

***********  Another thing to keep in mind is that many of the relatively
cheap lenticulars are unable to present more than a certain limited number
of discrete depth layers due to the optical considerations. They provide an
appearance of continuity but even if the original image was continuous, the
lenticular would be in reality layered. Layered depth is more than the
cardboard effect in that digital images like SIRDS are layered according to
pixel size/resolution factors. If the layers are close together (Z
dimension) and have textures that are consistent, they are seen as blending
together, but are actually layers. The more layers of depth present, the
greater the sense of overall depth or roundness of transition that is possible.

The lenticular on CD covers is very limited and appears only capable of 3
layers, though I haven't had a chance to experiment with trying to squeeze
more out of it.

As to McD's lents, which I haven't seen, even if they only had a 2D source,
anything of a nature to be given away with food purchases would be of a
scale that making a conversion on a computer would NOT be expensive or hard
to accomplish. The biggest problem is most designers don't think in 3D and
the lenticular material they were working with may have had limits they
didn't know how to work around or couldn't work around. In that case it
would have been the cost of better materials more than the cost of computer
manipulation that would be significant. Fixing one image is nothing compared
to multiplying the finished product by several thousand.

Larry Berlin

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


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