P3D Terminology: my 3 cents worth

[Tom Pettit <gecko@xxxxxxxxxx>]

With the cost of inflation, I've increased my 2cents worth to
3cents.....

Since the term 3D is used very loosely to generalize something with
dimensions....
3D Sound, 3D Graphics, etc.... I often used the term 3D Photography,
Stereoscopic 3D (the later seems a bit redundant, but hey, it gets the
point across)
and more commonly "Dimensional Images"

And speaking of 3D Graphics, here's an excerpt from "3D Studio MAX 2:
Fundamentals"....

pg 10- Defining 3D Graphics

      "Three-dimensional graphics means you are working with three
dimensions; in other words, width, depth, and height.  If you look
around, everything you see is three-dimensional- the chair, the desk,
the building, plants, and even yourself.  However, the term 3D graphics
is a distortion of the truth.  In reality, 3D computer graphics are a
two-dimensional representaion of a virtual three-dimensional world.

     To help illustrate this, imagine that you have a video camera and
are filming the room around you.  As you move around the room, you
encounter various 3D objects, but when you play back the video on your
VCR, you are looking at a flat, two-dimensional image representing the
3D world you filmed a minute ago.  The scene appears realistic thanks to
the lights, colors, and shadows, which give the scene life and
three-dimensional depth, even though it is still 2D."


Very nice interpretation by the authors (Peterson & Minton).

Tom.



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