Ortho and Hyperstereo

[P3D <LeRoyDDD@xxxxxxx>]

     Months(years) ago the list had significant traffic on "Ortho."

     My conclusion was that the philosophical, ideal "Ortho", defined as
recreating in film/pixel, recording/viewing, the original scene as
experienced by the observer is unattainable today. Perfect Virtual Reality
just isn't here yet. (Ok, application of massive amounts of money and time to
perfecting feasible technologies will do it... where are you when we need you
Bill Gates?) 
     With good, often expensive equipment, materials and technique, aided by
the willing brain, though, we think/hope we can come close in the visual
aspects.

     The classic 3-D Stereo definition of "Ortho" is that the viewed images,
taken at the interocular of the observer, will be presented at the apparent
size the observer would have experienced from the taking position.
     Except for those folks who have the same IPD as the lens spacing of the
taking camera, the classic ideal is by definition unattainable.

     The present day 3-D systems that I enjoy so much(the ones I can afford)
fail the philosophical idea in(at least) the following respects:

     1. Less resolution, including dynamic range and color accuracy
     2. Restricted field of view
     3. Restricted point of view
     4. No motion in scene

     And those are just limitations having to do with the visual recreation!

     Interestingly enough, the Realist and Viewmaster formats assist the
willing brain to "read" more resolution into their images by using viewing
lenses and typical projection seating to introduce "stretch" into the
visual reconstruction. I think Hyperstereo provides the same assistance.

     The challenge for me is to choose when to use it. This was driven home
to me at Rochester NSA while viewing a members slides of the Southwest. On
reflection, it *is* possible that there was some problem in the mounting, but
I was really disturbed that every scene was hyper to the max. Great subjects,
good photography overall, but painfully unreal to me.

     If the photographer had indeed used the one in thirty rule to give the
first significant geographic feature the depth it would have had at about
seven feet, in almost every case, I would have preferred the apparent depth
to have been for 40 to 60 feet. My brain just didn't want to "get around" the
scenes and enjoy them at such a large hyper.

     I *have* had good results with two to four times standard interocular
for scenics with little foreground. So I guess I'll just have to keep
searching for a camera with the "zoom interocular" feature! :=)

LeRoy Barco
LeRoyDDD@xxxxxxx


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