P3D The Term "3D"

[vidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

   This business of the term "3D" has always bothered me.  I personally don't
use the term 3D because of it's _now_ inherent ambiguity.  I ALWAYS make it a point to
use the term "stereo" i.e., stereography, stereo photography, stereo image, etc.,
because the term 3D has now come to mean just about anything one wants it to!
Every few wekks someone here brings to our attention some "3D something" which
we as stereographers would not consider "3D".  The worst comes from the computer
graphics industry which applies shading or rounded corners to objects in a 2D image 
and they call it 3D!  Everyone has 3D graphics!  But who has stereographics??!!

   I really like what John Roberts had to say:

"...Every time I've suggested that, the response on P3D has been more or less that
there's no need for it, that people should be able to call whatever they
want 3D, and it would be silly to think of having a standardized nomenclature.
So if this guy says his product is 3D, then it *is* 3D, because he says so.
For those who want to complain about it, my response would be "So what do
you intend to do about it?"."

   What I intend to do about it is to call what I do "stereo....".. This way there
is no question that I am refering to two images presented anyway you want to to the
eyes with enough parallax in each image for the brain to perceive stereopsis.  I know
the "industry" may not go along with this definition, but if what we call 3D is ever
going to pick up again on a large scale, it's got to have its own name and I believe 
that name should be "Stereographic".  It cannot be confused with anything else and 
we should flame the daylights out of anyone who uses the term incorrectly!  At least 
that's what I think.


Stereographically yours,


John Vala


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