Re: 3D SPEX (and LCS in general)

[P3D Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 29 Aug 1997 14:19:06 -0400
>From: P3D  John Urbanic writes:
>........................
>(commenting about what Andrew wrote:)
>
>thanks for your thoughtful insight.  I am glad to see that people are actually
>thinking about this stuff instead of just reacting to what vendors promote.

--------  Then proceeds to further *vendor promote*...

>.............
>No question that a full-frame high-frequency system is the most obvious
>way to go, as noted in our "3D Theory" pages. .................
>......................
>and this plain doesn't exist except in a few very high-end pieces of equipment
>that no one wants to pay for.  Why does the rest of the world need 1024x768
>at 120Hz?  

******  While 1024 x 768 x 120Hz would be perhaps ideal, there is nothing
wrong with 1024 x 768 x 85 Hz! It doesn't require a multimillion dollar
piece of equipment either. It costs significantly less than $300 for a piece
of equipment that any good computer needs anyway for a variety of additional
essential purposes. That makes it well within the budgetary needs of the
average consumer. There is no reason that page flipping can't continue to
improve while the cost of using it becomes less.  I disagree with your basic
premise that nothing slower than 120 Hz is acceptable. Till monitors and
other special devices become cheaper, I'll eagerly ignore a small amount of
flicker effect, even for hours of viewing.

>.....................
>Also, though page-flipping may seem elegant, even if everyone had the
>hardware capability today, Windows doesn't really support it.  Windows NT
>can't even fake it.  And don't even think about Digital Video Disk.  We
>have a DVD product, and it does provide beautiful full-motion, high-res,
>zero-flicker 3D.  If we had a page-flipped system we couldn't do this without
>re-writing the operating system and video drivers for every drive on the
>market.  With sync-doubling, it was a natural progression from our still
>photography product and didn't require the least hardware upgrade for our
>customers.  And, we don't have to touch any of their crucial system software
>like video drivers or the registry.

*****  How convenient for you. I've heard better stories about stereo with
DVD than you are telling so something isn't complete here. I see no problem
with page flipping stereo with DVD, providing a page flipping stereo system
is installed on a computer. Built into DVD are capabilities that can do
better than just support of sync doubling for stereo. You have no interest
in looking for them or using them if they were present since your system
uses just the one method. I intend to use DVD with page flipping at some
point. I can even do it with CD-ROMs so why not with DVD, which I understood
to contain advanced provisions for stereo application.

As to windows not supporting page flipping, so it is. Does that mean page
flipping is less ideal? Absolutely not. It does say that MS and Windows
development has been way off the ideal mark by the simplest of evaluations.
It will be surpassed eventually and whether MS decides to wake up and do the
job itself, or a competitor decides to end their ridiculous posturing by
providing something far better, remains to be seen. We don't have to wait
till then to have high quality page flipping on a Windows computer, here and
now in 1997. Doesn't cost a fortune either.

>.................
>More resolution is always nicer.  The nice thing about sync-doubling is that
>you can pick any resolution you want...............
>.................... We find that 1024x768 with at least 16 bit makes a
>good starting point for photographic material.  We picked that spec because
>it worked, not because of some inate limitation in our equipment.  We can
>always go higher (and do).

******  Your sync doubling on a screen that is 1024 x 768 is really 512 x
768. Since that is a squashed image that number doesn't represent an
accurate portrayal of resolution, so in essence, you are providing
approximately a 640 x 480 image to the full screen whatever size it is. With
page flipping I can see the same thing at 120 Hz refresh rates sent to the
full screen. In addition I can increase the bandwidth and view an 800 x 600
at 100 Hz, which is almost flicker free. Or 1024 x 768 at 85 Hz. with an
amount of flicker that isn't too bad. I don't like 60 Hz. flicker at all.
Each of the resolutions I mention here occupy the full monitor screen. The
cost of equipment, assuming one already has a good computer and monitor, is
about the same as what you want for the sync doubling.

Now, if you want to talk about *inate limitations* lets talk about half
height images. Have you written your software to be able to read a full
height image into your sync doubling method? If not, I say that is an
inherent built-in limitation. There is no reason software, even for your
system shouldn't be able to read regular full height images, but does it?

>
>>> DON'T USE LOSSY COMPRESSION FOR 3D.
>....................
>Not at all, although I can see the confusion.  Besides the fact that vertical
>resolution is much less important for 3D than horizontal resolution (several
>people told me they will have "line-pair" cards at their next club meeting
>as they found this fascinating), just selecting a lower resolution is a lot
>differant than a lossy compression scheme.  To oversimplify considerably,
>JPEG works by "smearing" out the image.  The higher the compression the more
>high-frequency information you lose.  High-frequency information is primarily
>edges and bounderies in your picture.  This is exactly what you don't want to
>lose in 3D, and results in many image quality problems, the most obvious is
>known in these circles as "cardboarding".

*******  Lots to disagree with here!!!

For starters, JPG images do induce a degree of loss. However in using normal
amounts of compression (25% to 65%) the loss is VIRTUALLY NEGLIGABLE
(depending on characteristics in each image too!). I can't imagine wanting
to use higher degrees of compression than moderate amounts anyway. They
already compress to small enough packages that they can be used easily on
the internet. Want higher quality? Just use less compression. Obvious direct
relationship. Or switch to using PNS which is the stereo form of PNG. PNG
offers a no-loss compression that is royalty free, but don't expect a lot of
compression. The image files are still rather large, so this is for some
amount of compression, without losing any image quality. Ideal for stereo,
but still a bit large for general internet usage. It beats NEO in that it's
non-proprietary and commonly available to anyone and defeats the argument
about loss compression!!!

Now as to vertical resolution being less important... Hogwash. Yes, it is
horizontal detail that is critical to stereo viewing, but the eye does
resolve vertical resolution in essentially the same degree as horizontal
resolution. If you were dealing with a 2D image, they are both about the
same. What you are trying to say is that since stereo uses mostly horizontal
detail, it's somehow OK to throw out 50% of the vertical resolution. Try
that in 2D and you'll be sorry. The same holds true for vertical resolution
in a 3D image. True it doesn't affect the perception of depth, but is depth
the only thing you are looking at???!!! No.

The line-pair cards is not an accurate representation of this factor.
Instead take an image, say of 200 wide by 20 tall, and resample or resize it
to 200 x 10. Then to view it, reexpand it to 200 x 20. In the process you
lost some resolution that wasn't replaced by the reexpansion step. Do you
notice the loss? Is this really desirable way to go? Not for me.

CARDBOARDING is far and away more caused by a narrow stereo base than by JPG
compression. It is not even closely related to JPG compression. If you
compress a stereo image far enough for a loss to be apparent, the loss is of
the retinal rivalry type (details and textures not identical in both sides),
NOT CARDBOARDING. Cardboarding is solely the phenonmena of a lack of
relative depth factors, or lack of visible parallax in an object being
observed. Yes, JPG could eventually provide that loss, but it would have to
be at a very high compression. I see cardboarding in many stereo images,
both photographs, lenticulars and digital images. It has nothing directly to
do with JPG compression!!! The argument about JPG and cardboarding is a car
salesman tactic. It's a misapplication of unrelated facts.

>
>A second HUGE disadvantage ...... lossy
>compression schemes (and JPEG is one of these) get worse with every iteration
>of compression (known as a cumulative loss).  For many applications this is
>a non-issue (our Web pages have more than a few JPEGs).  However, in stereo-
>scopy it is very important to be able to adjust, or re-register, an image
>for differant circumstances.  Every time you adjust a JPEG even a bit, and
>then re-JPEG it, you have just smeared the image some more.

*****  No big problem here, make your images in a no-loss format (TIF, BMP,
TGA, PNG, PCX  plus many others. Or for stereocopic formats use BMS, or PNS)
and keep them around for further work should it ever be needed. OF COURSE
it's stupid to expect to re-edit a JPG image and get reasonable quality. Who
even suggested such a thing?

>..............
>That's true.  We, however, made a very conscious decision that if setting
>some mimimum standards meant we can't provide "browsing" quality images,
>then that was what we would do.  Two years ago that meant we didn't even
>intend to offer a Netscape "Helper" application. 

******  That's not a decision for image quality, that's a dumb marketing
mistake. You ingored 80% of the full marketing picture and made a bad
decision. That's all that such a thing represents. It's kind of like MS
missing out on the internet idea till later when someone proves it was more
than what they had thought ...

>This year, we have many
>customers trading via the Internet (but not casually browsing; the images
>are still at least 500K).  Maybe next year will see .neo files in displayed
>form on Web pages.  If not, then the year after.  Our strategy is to do only
>high-quality imagery in whatever medium works, not to dumb down the quality
>until it fits everywhere.  The rush of technology (things like Digital
>Video Disk, and increasing Web bandwidth) seems to be our friend in this
>regard.

*****  No one said anything about dumbing down image quality either. The
intent of JPS was for internet exchange of stereo images since that's likely
to be the number one mode of access in the forseeable future. Of course
viewing systems can read other image types, but they are too large for
common sharing. I have dozens, maybe hundreds of stereo images that are over
1 MB each. I can show them to friends when they stop by, but I create JPS
images for the internet. Or PNS images for moderate compression and no loss.
None of them are half height, nor will they ever be.

The other reason for JPS was to *not introduce* yet another proprietary
format locked away behind technical doors accessible only to those who
purchase a certain brand of viewing device. NEO is one of those kinds of
proprietary things. No one else can use them or find a way to access them
other than purchase of your system. In order to use them on the internet,
you will have to release the format to everyone's use. (of course you could
do that tomorrow if you decided to do so. Why wait another one or two
years??!!!) Then the question is, *why would I bother with yet another
format, since long before NEO becomes usable, there are so many others that
aren't proprietary, yet serve the purpose very well? 

The decision to use a proprietary format for any stereoscopic format is one
that is totally self serving with no thought at all to the general stereo
market place. The *cause* of spreading and encouraging stereoscopic usage is
not served by proprietary image formats. The use of proprietary formats
greatly limits the viability of those who choose to use them too. They have
a reason to not like generally available formats like JPS, BMS or PNS,
simply because they can no longer *control* peoples usage through purchases.

General formats for everyone to use work exactly opposite. They encourage
stereoscopic usage overall without regards to the viewing system. This
increases the overall marketplace and improves the selling environment for
any viewing system rather than just one brand. Considering the reasons why
there is such a lapse in public stereo usage between the 50's and now,
further limits to usefulness are counter productive overall and would tend
to reduce profitability in today's stereo products, as well as diminishing
any move to encourage more people to enjoy stereo. The truth is, stereo is
far easier than the proliferation of proprietary formats could possibly
allow. Any company hoping to make a profit in stereo should be fully behind
making the easy aspects more obvious, not less.

........................
>We, on the other hand, feel that 640x480 is far too low of image quality for
>non-novelty viewing by the general public, 

*****  Yet you admit that double sync maintains the same bandwidth of image,
making your full screen images equivalent to a 640 x 480 image in the end. 

>....that the compression to get it into
>60K results in serious 3D loss (I personally see a lot of cardboarding), 

****  Cardboarding is from other causes. I make many JPS images at between
100K and 200K for quality or under 100K for downloading considerations. The
compression does not affect the viewed image quality in a subjective sense
at all. They are certainly every bit the quality of images that I saw with
the Neotek system at NSA.

>.....................................
>Of all the materials we have licensed, we have downloaded many from
>the authors, but never once pulled the published version from their Web page.

*****  Why would anyone publish a CD based on downloaded web images, unless
that was the topic being published? If you like someone's images, ask for
the high res version. That's par for the course. Just standard operating
practice.


>.......................
>You can go directly to the .neo feature page at: http://neotek.com/neo.htm
>However, we are not promoting this as any kind of standard.  Indeed it is
>proprietary, and we spent a lot of time and money developing something from
>scratch targeted directly at stereoscopy. 

*****  And ignoring the marketplace as if it didnt' exist... NEO as
proprietary does no good for stereoscopic 3D in a general sense. One has to
own your equipment for it to have any meaning. That's just a way to reduce
your own effectiveness. It drastically narrows your own marketing reach. 

>.......There is very little incentive for us to give this away, and
>there are several hidden features that we will announce when appropriate.

*****  Lack of vision can translate into lack of incentive....  Of course
there are advantages to your particular situation in using a proprietary
format. You probably do have hidden properties in there, even good ones. But
again it is extremely limiting as well. As long as you are comfortable doing
stereo just for yourself and your customers directly, and no interest in
providing your customers with wider access to other stereo images, fine stay
with your closed door policy. I can see plenty of reason (including profit
oriented ones) NOT to go that route. 

>
>What I am suggesting is that you folks consider what the best choice for
>an electronic stereo standard should be, and then consider your options.
>You may find some of the .neo features useful.  Go ahead and incorporate
>them.  Just don't let someone rename an extension from .JPG to .JPS, put
>a flag in to state that it is a stereo format and then convince you this
>just happens to be right for stereoscopy.  

******  This is hogwash!!!  JPS will do more for stereoscopy than you have
ever dreamed was possible. Your NEO format is totally useless in the scheme
of things until you release it for general use. Until then it practically
doesn't exist. Certainly it can have no positive impact on the rest of the
world until it's available to be used by all.

Without question it is FAR better for stereoscopy for JPG to get used as a
stereo format (JPS) and the extremely simple, non-proprietary step of
changing the G to an S is the simplest possible method to accomplish BOTH
making stereo accessible to the public and making a special stereo image
format which software can take advantage of. Even your software could take
advantage of it if you wanted it to. Are you really going to limit your
customers by not providing such an access for their supposedly high quality
systems? If I owned your system I would not want my viewing experience
limited by your aversion to compression schemes. For me, quality in a stereo
system includes as a minimum, access to highest quality images as well as
access to the common range of stereo images, plus access to additional
stereo features, or even the lowest quality stereo images.

I am totally unwilling that my stereo viewing should be limited ONLY to high
res formats. I want to see and work with all the stereo images. AND I don't
want to have to buy every viewing system on the market in order to do so.

>As this and many other debates
>on here prove, 3D has been hampered more by compromises over the years that
>anything else.  

*****  Are you kidding!!! If not it's plain BS.

>Don't compromise just because someone wanted to published a
>"spec" and didn't want to spend more than a day implementing it.

*****  You would prefer that NO INDIVIDUAL PERSON has easy access to any
kind of stereo unless you sold them the system for doing so. I can't buy
that as preferrable to anyone but yourself. That attitude is the single most
injurious attitude ever and it's been directly responsible for delaying
stereo access over and over through the years. All too much of stereo
development has been locked away by proprietary stupidities based on
attitudes that miss the mark. Your stated attitude is part of the reason we
are learning about digital stereo now instead of 20 years ago. NO longer can
you or others get away with continuing such a mistake. If you get in the way
we will invent JPS, BMS, and PNS and go around you anyway. So keep up if you
will, or don't if you want to stay behind. The stereoscopic future beckons
and we want to go there. It's not needful nor desirable to wait for you to
release NEO or for other proprietary schemes to bottle things up worse than
they already are. 

WE THE PEOPLE HAVE TWO EYES. WE WANT TO USE BOTH OF THEM IN VIEWING STEREO
IMAGES. WE HAVE BEEN PROMISED STEREO IMAGE ACCESS THROUGH TECHNOLOGY SINCE
BEFORE WE WERE BORN, YET IT HAS TAKEN TILL NOW FOR IT TO COME ANYWHERE CLOSE
TO THE PROMISES. WE ARE NOT WILLING THAT ANY COMPANY SHOULD FURTHER DEPRIVE
OUR INALIANBLE RIGHTS TO MAKE AND USE STEREOSCOPIC IMAGES BY THE RESTRICTION
OF AN ENTIRE MARKET THROUGH PROPRIETARY FORMATS AND PROCEDURES. YOU DON'T
OWN MY TWO EYES, NOR DO YOU OWN MY ABILITY TO SEE WITH BOTH OF THEM. 

If I consider my options, I'll opt for JPS over NEO any day of the year,
based on current characteristics. You seem to have a strong objection to JPG
use of any sort, other than 2D use on a web page. When JPS was created and
talked about, NO ONE made any effort to hide the fact that it was a JPG
format. That is one of it's strongest characteristics. There are even
NO-LOSS methods in JPG, though few use it at that level. The basic argument
is proprietary over general free access. It's obvioius where I stand on that
one.

> If you don't
>know that JPS is just JPG, try renaming it and open it as a JPG with any
>paint program you have.  A cute trick, but it tells you how much effort to
>accomodate stereo really went into it.

****** Much more effort to make stereo accessible to the general public than
went into the NEO format!!!!  Of that I'm sure. It's so obvious too!!! 

That so called *cute trick* isn't a trick or an illusion either. It's
reality and the future looking you in the face. That trick was *very much
intended* and was a part of the design of JPS. It's the essential ingredient
that you left out when you invented NEO and decided no one should know
what's in it, nor have access to using it except your limited range of
customers.

Share your ideas if you will, but I for one won't let you get away with
misleading sales double talk that belongs on the car sales lot, and not even
there if the truth be known. Stereo is special because most everyone has the
ability to see in stereo. No need to get proprietary over the ability, at
least not if you hope to promote stereo generally. Open standards are good
for all stereo business, even yours if you stop to think about it.

Larry Berlin

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


------------------------------

End of PHOTO-3D Digest 2258
***************************
***************************
 Trouble? Send e-mail to 
 wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
 To unsubscribe select one of the following,
 place it in the BODY of a message and send it to:
 listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
   unsubscribe photo-3d
   unsubscribe sell-3d
   unsubscribe overland-trails
   unsubscribe icom
 ***************************