[photo-3d] 3D is the image

[Ray Zone <r3dzone@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Kersenbrock wrote:

> 3D-ness only allows the image to be captured "better".
> "3D" isn't the image, it's only an attribute of it.
> Adding the 3D attribute to an image's recording will
> improve some images

Ray Zone responds:

I couldn't disagree more.

Mike is propounding the "additive" theory of 3-D in which 3-D, like color,
is seen as icing added to a cake.  Some forms of 3-D actually change the
cake into a pie (or another form entirely).

For example:  the cover of the new ISU "Stereoscopy" (December 2000).  When
seen in 2-D the image means one thing.  Seen in 3-D the meaning of the image
changes entirely.

Other examples:  (1) the abstract Random Dot Stereograms of Bela Julesz;
only when you see the image in 3-D does the real (and hidden) meaning of the
image become apparent.

(2) The hyperstereo photograph:  This form of stereoscopic image, captured
from nature (or not), creates a visual dynamic that is solely based on the
experience of its perception.

As Stan White has said:  "The stereo image must never be considered an
adjunct to the planar photograph, for the essential difference is
qualitative not quantitative."

Stan is so eloquent in propounding the stereoscopic art form as a new visual
language distinct from the monocular form that I will quote him in full on
this subject:

"For those who are fortunate in being psycho-physically vulnerable to its
spell, the stereo image is magical. Like any worker in the field of visual
expression, the photographer may fill his images with the real or with the
surreal, but the stereo photographer is unique in that his medium is
surreal. How else can we explain the dream-like experience when viewing the
stereo-image?--an experience that was absent when the reality itself was
observed. It is this quality of evoking a kind of day-dream that sets the
stereo image apart from its two-dimensional counter-parts."

When you look at a 3-D image, regardless of the subject matter, you are
using your eyes and brain in a manner that is unique, exponentially more
complex, and different from, a 2-D image.

To consider 3-D imaging as a mere secondary, adjunct to 2-D imaging is
simplistic and does an injustice to 3-D.  Stereoscopic imaging is an
entirely new visual language requiring continual reinvention. The
stereoscopic image supercedes monocular art with new standards and
aesthetics, an inherent and distinct visual vocabulary based upon binocular
perception.