P3D Stereo Books

[jeremy.hinton@xxxxxxxxx]

Mark,

Re: your posting in Photo3D:

I would agree that the Lenses-in-the-cover method used by Mark Blum 
(Beneath the sea in 3D, Bugs in 3D) is the best compromise available.
The format is similar to '3D museum'. I have also seen an older German 
black and white book, which may be the same as the one you mention, 
but this was a  slightly smaller format. 

I have 'Beneath the sea...' (in Bristol) if you want a peek, but both 
Mark Blum's books are available from the internet bookstore 
(Amazon.com), which has a new UK version, at under a tenner. 
(unfortunately I can't look up the URL at the moment as our link is 
down).

Earlier this year I contacted Chronicle Books and Mark Blum to get 
more information. They were polite but not overly helpful, but MB said 
that Chronicle had bought in the covers and that any publisher would 
know how to go about it. (they don't in the UK!). 
He wished me luck while asking that I did not try to use his 
publisher. I don't know whether he was serious or not.

I mentioned 'compromise' above :- The lenses-in-the-cover system makes 
a very neat package, but a simple lens system means that the image 
centres have to be no further apart than eye separation (call it 6cm 
to be on the safe side), which means that the printing really has to 
be of excellent quality. 
That places constraints on formatting as well as print quality, as 
does the fact that the images all have to be on pages facing the lens 
cover (although in practice that can work well, as you have a page for 
text and a page for image). 
The all-in-one format also makes it slightly more difficult to hold up 
and light than a separate-viewer version.

But on the plus it looks good, works reliably (people don't twist 
their heads relative to the image), has adjustable focus, and you 
don't lose the viewing aid. 

Good luck, 

Jeremy



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