[photo-3d] Re: stereo decline

[<donaldparks@xxxxxxxxxx>]

    There have been many recent posts presenting various theories about reasons to explain the decline of general interest in stereo photography.  I would like to propose a different way of looking at this decline to stimulate alternative thinking.

    First a little background.  I was very enthusiastic about taking stereo slides in the late 1950's and 1960's.  I recall going to quite a number of 3D movies when they first came out.  My Dad was serious about taking home movies while I was serious
about taking 3D slides.  He always put his movie camera on a tripod to eliminate the annoying hand held camera jiggle that always makes home movies so hard to view.  Even though the movie camera on the tripod could be aimed to follow motion or pan a
wide scene the movies always looked quite flat compared to my 3D slides because the pictures were being taken from only one perspective.  In the 1980's I had a family of my own to record and decided to get a video camera.  I started to pay more
attention to how professionals take movies to pick up tricks that would make my videos look better.  I soon noticed that 2D professional movies communicate a lot of 3D to viewers due to the motion parallax that occurs because the camera is often in
motion as the scene is being shot.  I could do this with my video camera by moving to one side or the other as I was taking video.  The flaw in this way to add 3D was the hand held jiggle introduced which was very annoying to a viewer.  Professional
movie makers have an expensive array of booms and cameras on wheels or flying in the air that move very smoothly as the scenes are being shot.  The technology for providing this smooth motion parallax has been improving steadily so that now-a-days the
amount of 3D effect communicated by high budget 2D movies is amazing.  Sometimes it can make you feel almost weightless as the helicopter flys over the rim of a canyon etc.

     My proposal is that stereo or 3D has not been declining at all, at least in the movie theater and even on TV.  The 3D communicated is not conveyed as left and right eye images but as motion parallax information.  The same information reaches our
brains but the left and right views are time delayed.  Our brains are able to combine the time delayed motion parallax information so that we can sense the depth in the scenes we are watching.  It's all done intentionally by very skilled
cinematographers who understand exactly how to communicate the 3D information of a particular scene.  The transmission is so flawless that a lot of viewers don't even realize they are watching a "3D" movie.  There are no glasses to wear, no vertical
misalignment, no ghosting, no conflict between the focus and convergence of your eyes and no eyestrain headaches.  The stereophonic sound contributes a whole lot to the 3D effect also.

    I think the amount of 3D in professional movies has been steadily increasing since the 1950's not declining.  Making 3D movies using a left and right camera to be projected to viewers wearing polarized or LCD glasses is extremely complex,
difficult, expensive and obsolete.  Even when it's done well it doesn't add much if anything to the show.

I hope you folks don't decide to burn me at the stake for proposing this viewpoint.  -   Don Parks

Dr. Donald J. Parks
Mechanical Engineering Dept.
Boise State University