T3D Re: From Euclid to Wheatstone

[abram klooswyk <abram.klooswyk@xxxxxx>]

On 26 Sep 1998, TECH-3D Digest 367 I wrote:
(...)
>But there is no record of awareness of binocular depth perception
>before Leonardo da Vinci, and even he made no stereo pictures. 

The same day, the same Digest Jim Crowell answered:
>Actually, I don't think that's correct.  The Egyptian mathematician 
>AlHazen seems to have known a fair amount about it, & I'm pretty sure 
>he pre-dated da Vinci.  I believe there's a collection of his writings 
>out now, edited by Ian Howard of York University...

William J. Carter on 27 Sep 1998 in TECH-3D Digest 368 wrote some
things which I suppose also were in opposition to my statement.

I now have re-read Ian P Howard's paper: "Alhazen's neglected 
discoveries of visual phenomena", Perception 1996, vol 25, pages
1203-1217,
and found back the more or less definitive (:-)) quote 
on The Alhazen-Wheatstone Question:

"(...) Like Greek writers before him and indeed like all writers before
Wheatstone (1838) invented the stereoscope in 1832, Alhazen was 
preoccupied with the the question of how humans form a single image of
the visual world in spite of having two eyes which see the world from 
different vantage points (see Wade 1987) [the paper "On the late
invention of the stereoscope, AK]. Thus, in spite of giving an account
of corresponding points and binocular disparity, an account which was 
not superseded until Vieth's contribution in 1818, he did not link the 
geometry of binocular vision with the perception of depth."

I repete: "he did not link the geometry of binocular vision 
           with the perception of depth." 

So until more convincing facts become known, I consider to be 
A Scientific Fact: (...) that there is no record of awareness of 
binocular depth perception before Leonardo da Vinci.

Abram Klooswyk


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End of TECH-3D Digest 372
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