P3D 1999 NSA workshops

[WHMoll@xxxxxxx]

What do Dr T, Tom Deering and David Lee have in common?  Going to one of 
their workshops is like going to a revival meeting!  There is so much 3D 
energy that it just bounces off the walls.

I would like to thank George, Tom, David, Bill Davis, Stuart Stiles, Harry 
zur Kleinsmiede, Russell Norton, Steve Berezin, Keiichiro Sei, John Birchak 
and Dwight Cumming for their contributions to the NSA workshops.  Next year, 
we are going to have three times the number with a full track for digital and 
video.

A good example of what comes out of these conventions is the workshop on 
digital 3D cameras.  I declined David Burder's offer to Fed Ex his over from 
England - he has Kodak and Apple versions.  Steve Berezin had his, but it 
seemed like it was going to be a slim session.  Steve took his apart to show 
how he synchronized them.  Using a clever Velcro attachment, he was able to 
get three different lens spacings!

However, Sei-san (from Kanagawa, Japan) arrived with not one, but two 
cameras.  One was a twinned unit with merged controls, much like a typical 
Dremel and glue job.  It produced good images (two 640X480 vertical) printed 
on a Canon inkjet printer.  The second was a beam splitter made from pieces 
of a Fed beamsplitter and a Ricoh digital camera.  The beamsplitter was very 
well made, looking like a factory job.  It attached using the tripod 
connection.  The screen was marked to indicate the actual image.

Then, when I started to fill time discussing twinning the Minolta 1500, 
Dwight Cumming offered up his experience using the Dimage V.  Using this 
earlier model, he utilized the detachable lenses to put them on a slide bar 
and used the camera LCD screens as a stereo view finder.  After this 
proof-of-concept, John Birchak talked about the upgraded programming language 
for the Minolta 1500 (yes - it uses Digita). Combining all of our pieces, we 
should have a really sharp 3D digital camera ready soon!

If you missed this year, try to fit the one in for next year, the weekend 
just after July 4th.

Bill Moll


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