P3D Re: DIRDS not SIRDS

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 1997
>From: fj834@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Dr. George A. Themelis) writes:
>.........
>>Researchers claimed that the pattern *cannot* be seen without a
>>stereoscope.
>
>..................... I don't
>think any "researcher" will ever say that you need a stereoscope to view
>stereoscopic images. 

**** They did make such a statement regardless of whether or not they were
aware of something else. So why the separation of so much time between the
DIRD and the SIRD? They are exactly the same phenomenon, discoverable in the
same 30 minutes of work.... The researchers seem to have not used
freeviewing, even if they knew it existed or they would have had a far
greater rate of advancement. The same factor seems to still wreak havoc with
a high percentage of stereo related hardware and software design in today's
industry. Designing to perceived limits instead of using the greater and
more complete understanding that is available...

>
>But in order for me to explain to most people what they are missing by not
>being able to train their eyes to see the "stereograms", I copy them in
>slides and present them using a stereoscope (Realist "red button" viewer)
>or in projection.

****  Did you have to describe what a stereogram was or did they immediately
associate it with the posters and images they saw some people going gaga
over? OF COURSE you get good results presenting the stereograms by slide.
The lack of such methods included in the stereogram phenomena helped kill
it. Now that it's effectively a dead medium there are still thousands who
can't or haven't seen the shapes inside, but MOST people are aware that
stereograms exist and that they contain some kind of hidden shapes.

>
>>****  Steteograms went a lot farther in a short time for promotion of stereo
>>imaging than stereo photography had gone in a long time. 
>
>So how does the future now look after the "stereograms"?  Where are those
>millions of people who's lives got affected by these "stereograms"?

****  Many of them have gone on with their lives in whatever way they were
going... Many others got interested in more satisfying stereo pursuits and
joined P3D... The effect of stereograms continues today even though the
craze is gone. It was a sociological awakening phenomena. The future looks
better for stereo as a result, and it includes stereo WITHOUT the need for
stereoscopes... though various viewing devices will continue to be used
probably forever.

>................
>No, they have no idea what you are talking about.  This is a visual
>experience.  If they have not experienced a stereogram then they have no
>clue what stereo and freeviewing is all about.  That's why I copy those 
>and present them with a stereoscope.  To show them what this is all about.

****  The general population is a big generalization. People DO have an idea
what stereograms are. They HAVE seen the posters and books even if they
didn't see the shapes inside. For many the experience was one of
frustration, therefore you have the opportunity to get good results by
including slides of those patterns. Without that image craze, you wouldn't
get the same results by including such slides. You'd get stunned results and
cause the beginning of the craze, instead of just providing an explanation
about the past.

What's important about stereograms is not necessarily the same thing as
public acceptance, awareness, or stats of how many were successful at seeing
them.

>...............
>
>You make a very good "motivational speaker".  Unfortunately, I am not the
>kind of person who is motivated by "speeches" like this.  I work with
>metals and materials.  My relatives ask me when I am going to invent the
>wonder-metal that is tough and formable at the same time and carries other
>wonderful properties too.  I try to explain that it is much easier to dream
>about it than actually make it at a competitive cost.
>

You're missing some obvious points in the effort to make your point. For one
thing, if dreamers had to work against the measure of such absurd concepts
as *competitive cost*, we would be still living in caves and rubbing sticks
together for fire. The reality is that if competitive cost was really a
factor, we as a society would do a whole lot of things far differently than
we do now. The term *competitive cost* is one of those nebulous politically
loaded terms that can't really have a concrete meaning. It's measured
differently by anyone who uses it. It means something different to different
companies, and different countries even.

Competitive cost only has a limited range of application, and that's usually
LONG after an idea or concept has been dreamed, tried and dreamed again many
times. That's reality. It's always easier to dream than create a concrete
reality, but without the dreams there would be a lot less of what we know as
concrete reality.

I'm not trying to be a *motivational speaker* as you call it. I'm speaking
of benefits of stereo pursuits that exist for sociological, psychological,
philosophical and eye-opening mind expanding reasons. None of these factors
can easily be measured in terms of the factors that exist within the scope
of manufacturing. Manufacturing IS NOT the whole existence of man. However,
manufacturing concerns benefit when humans use their natural abilities and
create new or better tools. Once a tool is invented they can worry over
which material provides a so called *competitive cost.* Currently the
accountants never calculate the significant factors that brought their job
into being in the first place. That's too far outside their world. Without
inventors and dreamers, the accountants would be chasing deer on foot with
stones in their hands. So who is the most practical?  ;-)

BTW, it might be enlightening to read *the hundredth monkey* book if you can
find it.. I don't recall who wrote it, but it's relatively well known... and
has significant correlation to the benefits I'm describing from having and
pursuing a stereo interest.

There is more to stereo than cameras and viewing devices... helpful and
desirable as such devices are.

On the technological curve, stereo is just coming out of the dark ages
relative to other inventive pursuits. Previous times of popularity provided
glimpses of what was possible, but the possibilities weren't pursued or
weren't recognized in full, resulting in our being born into a time in which
we travel to the moon and planets and even find other planets around distant
suns, but can't get a MAC computer to run a copy of DepthCharge... and a
host of other trivial but oh so irritating, mostly unnecessary
limitations... Limitations that most seem to blindly accept as if they were
equivalent to the laws of gravity. Undo one of those limits at it's source
and a whole set of subsequent assumptions disappear, and presto a new
technology can be born. That's the way lots of things we now take for
granted got here in the first place.

Larry Berlin

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


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