Re: NeoTek Flame war

[P3D <norml@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with John Ohrt's remark quoted below.

I am going to weigh in on this issue as a satisfied user of Jon Gross'
(Catalyst Corp.) hobbyist version of the NeoTek system.

A few months ago I purchased a SimulEyes outfit on impulse just because
PriceCostco had it at a reasonable price. I quickly grew bored with it
because of the flicker, because it came with only a few, crude,
shoot'm'up games in demo versions and because I couldn't get it to work
in its highest resolution modes. (In retrospect this latter problem was
probably a video card problem.)

Then I saw Jon's demo at the NSA convention in Bellvue. I debated for
a while because it is fairly pricey as a hobbyist item, but the images
were so superior to anything I had seen on a consumer-grade display, that
I bought it.

At the convention, Jon offered to scan any stereo pair you had for free.
He offers this service at reasonable prices through Catalyst. I haven't 
had occasion to use this service yet, but I had a friend scan in the
outer pairs of some Rittai negatives. Aside from the slightly reduced
depth caused by the relatively narrow spacing of the Rittai lenses, the
pictures are wonderful. (John Dukes, John Bercovitz, Dahlia Miller and Alan
Woods are featured in these shots.)

I have also experimented with re-aligning and re-cropping some of the
demo images that came with the system. Among other advantages, this
is a wonderful way to learn about proper slide mounting.

The software that comes with this version is somewhat clunky and I hope
that it will be economical to offer some upgrades, but if you are
interested in experimenting with your own images rather than playing
those useless games, you should consider this system.

The vertical resolution question is an interesting one. It seems to me
that, in this system, the total vertical resolution is available in a
way analogous to the way that the total color resolution is available
in anaglyphs as long as the filter colors are carefully chosen--except
that you don't have the rivalry that the anaglyphs produce.

A related topic: Somewhere in this discussion it was alleged that the
best way to display stereo images with computers is to have two
equal-bandwidth images. I don't think this is necessary. There is great
redundancy in a stereo pair. It seems to be only necessary to store or
transmit one of the images along with another file containing only the
difference information between the two images. I am not enough of a
mathematician to work this out, but it seems to me that it would be somewhat
analogous to the way stereo audio is encoded for FM transmission.

I hope Jon Gross and John Urbanic will stick with this discussion and
further address these issues.

And I hope everbody will refrain from the "Nyah, Nyah, Nhah, My system is
better than yours" assertions.

But I can't resist pointing out the my SimulEyes system was in a box
along with some other items for Goodwill today.

Norm Lehfeldt

>Furthermore the arguments merit airing out.
>
>My opinion.
>
>--
>
>John Ohrt * Toronto * ON * Canada


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