P3D Stereopticon vs. stereoscope

["Dr. George A. Themelis" <DrT-3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>stereopticon: "a projector usually consisting of two complete lanterns
>arranged so that one picture appears to dissolve while the next is 
>forming"

I don't know who first used the term "stereopticon" for a dissolve
projector but clearly this was a mistake because it has nothing
to do with stereo (Greek word meaning "solid")... (unless of course
if we mean the Brackett Dissolver...)

>Some people have suggested that the word "stereopticon" be redefined 
>to refer to the Holmes stereoscope...

The thing I don't like about "stereopticon" is that it mixes a Greek
and a Latin word.  Not that this has not be done before, but it
sounds very artificial.  While the "stereoscope" uses two Greek words.

>Note that the definition of "stereoscope" is very general - a slide viewer
>might be regarded as a stereoscope, though that is not usually done. 

Maybe it should be done more often!  Any stereoscopic viewer is a
stereoscope.  The David White company wrote the following in the
instruction manual of their red button viewer (ca. 1947): "The Stereo
Realist Viewer is a carefully designed and precisely made stereoscope."
But the term "Viewer" seems to have taken over the term stereoscope
when to comes to stereo slides.

Trying to find a good Greek world for "viewer" (note that viewer has
two meanings, both the person who views and also the instrument used
for viewing) my good friend Chris Politopoulos decided to use the
term "stereoscope".  So when we were going around Athens we were
looking for View-Master stereoscopes, for example.  This is a good
choice since there is no equivalent for "viewer" in Greek... Another 
choice would have been "fakos" which means "lens" but this could be used
for any instrument with lenses, not necessarily a stereoscopic viewer.

George Themelis


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