P3D Editors, and the future of stereo publications

[roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (John W Roberts)]

>Date: Sun, 10 May 1998 02:20:32 -0600
>From: Tom Deering <tmd@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: P3D Distructive Comments

>Some of these Stereo World comments sound like a bad American sitcom:  The
>husband thinks his only job is to bang his fork louder, rather than come
>help in the kitchen.

>Several real editors have weighed in on this.  If you want more of
>something, submit an article.  Stereo World is the voice of the membership,
>not the voice of an editor. If you feel differently, then you're just
>banging your fork.

I think part of the reason for continuing disagreement is that the debate
has actually involved at least two topics:
 - what should be expected of an editor (the tasks which are critical to
   the role of "editor", and
 - things that the person who is editor might choose to do to (in addition
   to the core tasks) to improve the publication. This could include things
   like asking for submissions, issuing calls for papers on certain topics,
   and so on.

The fact that much of the editorial work is voluntary, and that the editors
may sometimes also be the publishers, further complicates the issue. I've
enjoyed all the 3D photography publications I've seen so far, and wouldn't
want to criticize the work of the editors involved.

A general comment on the areas of coverage of existing stereo organizations
and their publications: I think there's a good chance that fairly soon
(perhaps as near as 2-6 years) digital stereo imagery is going to blast
right past conventional film-based stereo photography. That doesn't mean
I think film-based stereo will disappear, but that availability and
quality of equipment, number and activity level of participants will
experience explosive growth, and greatly exceed the current numbers for
film-based stereo. As an example, the next mass-production high quality
stereo camera could very well be digital.

If this happens, it would be a shame for the new digital stereo and
associated organizations and publications to grow up largely isolated
from the existing 3D organizations and publications, so that there is
little carry-over of information and the painful lessons learned in
film-based stereo have to be learned all over again. It would be very
beneficial to the field of 3D if some of the existing publications would
start planning a mechanism for including more coverage of digital stereo
issues, so as to have credibility and recognition in this field when it
starts to heat up.

There might even be a possiblity of future news-stand type mass market
publications on digital stereo. (Naturally, an undertaking of this type
is a combination of risk and opportunity.)

I don't think *every* stereo photography publication should opt for more
digital coverage, but it would be bad if *none* of them did.

John R


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