P3D Re: Henry and Reality

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1999
>From: "Oleg Vorobyoff" <olegv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>....................
>Rod Sage wrote
>.................. Combine that moment in time with 3D and you have
>>the 4 dimensions xyzt. A great way of reliving things past.
>
>
>"Frozen in time" is an apt characterization of 3D photography, but I
>question the mathematics.  Isn't 3D xyzt - t, or xyz?  

*****  Actually any image records a specific moment in time though in some
cases of still life, you could easily recreate an indentical moment, which
is to say the time element is invisible. So 2D is xyt, and 3D is xyzt.

>The novelty
>appeal of 3D is that it restores the z element missing in the popular
>recording media: photography (xy) and video (xyts), where s is sound.

*****  In video or movies you have repetitions of time elements deliberately
very close together for continuity and so that you actually record changes
over time. So that would be xy+delta time+sound.


>..........  Despite
>recent technological innovations, the older media and art forms -
>speech, letters, sculpture, poetry, to name a few - often do a better
>job of of re-evoking past realities.

****  Only because these older media forms remain simpler and easier to use,
as well as more familiar to most.


>
>So what is there about 3D besides novelty?  I suspect it can achieve a
>certain type of purity.  Pure xyz.  Distillation of space, in the same
>way music can seem to be a distillation of time.
>

*****  Since our biology is structured inclusive with 3D, not an added
after-thought as with computers (even 2D graphics are an afterthought in
computers! ), it could be possible with improved technology to use 3D as an
effective communication and thinking medium, in the same sense in which we
now jot ideas on paper. If our access to 3D was as easy as our interaction
with flat surfaces, 3D would be far more than novelty. Of course in medicine
and science where results are more important than moderately increased
effort, 3D is already more than novelty. 

We can't begin to unlearn our flat thinking habits until we immerse
ourselves in 3D and that won't happen for most until it's extremely easy and
effortless for every possible application including the most mundane tasks.
Then the surprises will start to show up. (we haven't seen it all yet)
Stereo photography, as wonderful as it is, is only an introductory glimpse
at our true perceptual heritage.

Does anyone remember the movie *Contact*? The plans for the travel device
from the aliens were formulated in 3D which created an almost impossible
communication barrier... The story may be fiction, but the concept of our
lack of 3D understanding (as a species) is very real. Our use of flat
surfaces to assist thinking and communication since pre-historical times
influences how we think and what we scientifically recognize far more than
we usually realize. 3D is in that sense, the mind opener of the future.

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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