3d Expo

[P3D Bruce Rosenberger <BR3D@xxxxxxx>]

I hope you'll all forgive me for writing the article for the newsletter first, 
but I wanted it to be fresh in my head. Here's my first draft (and my 
impressions of the 3D Expo)

3D Expo
On March 12th I received via UPS a thirty-five pound box bursting with 
3D/Stereo goodies. The "3D Expo" was originally a topic of discussion on the 
Internet 3D/Stereo Newsgroup Photo-3D (See the article on Photo-3D in the 
Nov/Dec '96 issue of 3D Ink). Within days, Joel Alpers (of Rocky Mountain 
Stereo) had volunteered to assemble the Expo. A bit more discussion and the 
message went out to all Photo-3D members to participate by sending up to five 
of our favorite stereo photographs, in any format, to Joel by a certain date. 
Joel then combined the photos and written information into plastic pages and 
notebooks. The collection included; 192 Realist format slides, 41 view cards, 
20 pairs of stereo 2X2 pairs, 12 View-Magic pairs, 9 medium format slides, 4 
anaglyph pictures, several lenticular photographs, 3 View-Master reels, 3 
stereo videos and a disk of 3D computer images and games. The next step was 
getting together the various types of viewers needed to enjoy the collected 
photographs which included; a Realist Red Button, a Holmes type viewer, a 
View-Magic viewer, a View-Master viewer, a dual 2X2 slide viewer, a home made 
viewer for medium format slides and two types of shutter glasses. All this was 
packed into a box and started it's journey across the country, going from 
person (or group of people) to person. 
The following Sunday I invited several friends over to help me enjoy the Expo 
and we spent the afternoon going through all the slides and pictures. The 
quality of the slides ranged from mediocre (like my slides) to incredible. 
Some of the highlights for me included; hyper-stereos with incredible depth 
taken from an airplane, closeups like a cat batting it's paw at the camera or 
a small frog on the tip of someone's finger, scenics like gondolas on a misty 
morning in Venice, and an animated video segment. 
We projected the slides that we were allowed to (some people didn't want their 
slides projected) and then set up different stations around the table for the 
other formats. Included with each view was a information sheet detailing 
subject, camera type, photographer, etc. It was fun to look through the sheets 
and then the corresponding slide to see the results of different cameras. The 
sheets also had room for comments, some of which were funny, some 
complimentary, and some with constructive criticism, but I couldn't find one 
that had any nasty remarks, which shows the calibre of everyone involved.
For me it was a wonderful experience, a chance to see what many others are up 
to, and an inspiration. 
Reluctantly, Tuesday evening, I packed up the box using the video that I had 
made of myself unpacking the box as a reference, and shipped it off to the 
next person on the list on Wednesday morning. I must admit to being a little 
nervous as I walked into the UPS office with a thirty-five pound box, 
wondering if I had enough money in my wallet to cover the shipping. Luckily it 
was less than a third of what I had expected.
The Expo will return to it's home port in  few months and all of the views 
will be shipped back to their respective owners. Hopefully, someone will take 
on the challenge of organizing another one soon after that.
Bruce Rosenberger


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