P3D Re: The Springsteen Prize

[Brian Reynolds <reynolds@xxxxxxxxx>]

I haven't seen the patents Bob Maxey mentioned, or the book Bruce
Springsteen found, but I think the creation of a circular stereo base
calculator is just a matter of graphical construction.

Take the Berkovitz/Spicer formula and plot it on polar graph paper.
Make the "Near Object Distance" <theta> and the "Camera Seperation"
<r>.  The conversion from rectangular to polar coordinates can be
looked up in a math book, or done on some calculators (e.g. the HP-48
series).  Plot several lines for varying "Far Object Distance", just
as in the rectangular case.

To find a particular setup rotate the polar graph paper around until
the angle <theta> representing the "Near Object Distance" you are
interested in is vertical and trace along that radius line <r> until
you reach the plotted line representing the "Far Object Distance" you
are looking for.  The distance from the center of the graph paper to
the plotted line represents "Camera Seperation".  You could make a
straight strip of paper with markings scaled for the "Camera
Seperation" distances so that by placing this strip along the radius
line you could directly read off "Camera Seperation".

If my computer weren't down I'd have done this in Postscript and
submitted it earlier.  Excel might even be able to do this
automatically.  Can Excel plot polar graphs?

-- 
Brian Reynolds                  | "Humans explore the Universe with five
reynolds@xxxxxxxxx              |   senses and call the adventure science."
http://www.panix.com/~reynolds/ | - Edwin P. Hubble


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