P3D Stereo Nomenclature and some Glossary History 1/3

[abram klooswyk <abram.klooswyk@xxxxxx>]

In several books on stereoscopy small or longer glossaries
have been published.
In making glossaries there is a choice:
1. Looking "in the wild" which words exist, and explain them.
   This approach is mostly followed by dictionary makers.
2. Defining which words _should_ be used. This is making a
   standard terminology, like the anatomical nomenclature,
   which since long is settled by an international committee.
   A German DIN standard has tried to do this for stereowords.

The latter approach can quickly become ridiculous, when
it is not done by an institution with world wide authority.
Personally, I feel that there are number of confusing terms
for which a standard is desirable, but I don't see how it
could be enforced.

Andrew Woods wrote (P3D Digest 3624, 2 Dec 1999):
>Unfortunately, very little is officially standardized in
>stereoscopic imaging - including terminology.
(...)
That's right, if pushed I could easily fill some P3d Digests
with stereo terminology pollution. One item of that list
would be (:-)):
>With regards to the term "parallax", I commonly use the term
>"Screen Parallax" to mean the linear distance between
>homologous points on the screen surface (...)

I have quoted the definition of parallax from Ferwerda
(P3D Digest 3624,01 Dec 1999). It was *not* a linear distance.
A standard I should like is to use parallax only for angles,
and separation for distances between left and right items
(eyes, lenses, cameras, image points - anything in the X-direction).

[There is a rumor that Colonel Berlinski soon will do a stereo
coup d'etat, and then a number of terms will be forbidden.
It seems that the Terminology Police already has give a
Last Warning to drop "cyclopean" to the editors of Nature,
Science, Vision Research, Perception, Exp Brain Res.,
Percept Psychophys., Neurosci Res. ,Acta Psychol,
J Fr Ophtalmol, J Neurophysiol., Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci.,
Invest Ophthalmol., J Exp Biol., J Exp Psychol,
Schweiz Arch Neurol Neurochir Psychiatr., Ann N Y Acad Sci.,
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, Ophthalmic Physiol Opt.,
Br J Ophthalmol. Science and others, all of these journals
seem to have used the word in the last ten years, see in Pubmed,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/]

(to be continued)

Abram Klooswyk