Baba the elephant (Left-, Right-, Left-eye views)
Stereo Photography for everyone
Charles Warner 20 March 2010
keywords: cloud stereo photography,
stereo cards, meteorology, monsoons, Turkey,
Cappadocia, Yellowstone, Peru,
China, Machu Picchu
Contact details appear at the end.
After a short introduction we start with
viewing stereo-pairs.
There follow stereos of
plants, people, ..,
buildings, rock formations and
clouds (see important news for forecasting).
Written with professionals in mind, case studies of winter monsoon clouds appear on the page
jetsamoocow.clara.co.uk/page2.html
[29 Dec 78 (height scales of water over tropical oceans)], and the smaller page
jetsamoocow.clara.co.uk/page3.html
[17 Dec 78 (including slender humilis)]; then follows a page named
jetsamoocow.clara.co.uk/bay.html about "Convective sweepers".
These pages contain original material; they are to let meteorologists gain familiarity by clicking rapidly through many examples.
Lively variety is probably a necessary feature of tropical oceanic cloud formations.
Finally we consider taking stereo-pairs, and mounting them,
which requires care.
A photo of our dog Jet and my curriculum vitae follow.
To promote Stereo Photography, please if you like it link it.
Most people are capable of seeing stereo-pair pictures without the aid of a stereoscope.
This site is to show how to view stereos and how to take your own. No special abilities are required.
Stereo-pair pictures allow one the excitement of seeing the hitherto unseen, and it amazes me that they are so little known.
I hope that before long newspapers and journals and bookshops will regularly carry cross-eye stereo-pairs,
and children will compare their favorite stereo cards. Here are great commercial opportunities.
Now sit down with your newspaper. Have a waste basket two metres away. Read your newspaper from the middle outwards.
As you finish each double page spread screw it up into a ball and throw it carefully at the waste basket.
(How many times did you score a hit?)
To hit the the basket with the balls of newspaper you throw with the muscles of your arm.
When you throw a glance at something you throw with the muscles of your eyes. To see 3D, stereo-pair, pictures,
throw with the muscles of your eyes in a way slightly different from the usual.
It is very complicated just to throw an ordinary glance. Each of your two eyes has to be pointed at the object,
and each eye has to be focused on the object. Four different functions are coordinated.
We normally get so good at this kind of throwing that we can switch glances instantly, and follow moving objects.
The brain co-ordinates the muscles and locks on with ease.
Try walking around with one eye closed. One would not think of going on holiday wearing a patch over one eye.
Holiday memories are two-eyed. Yet collections of holiday photos are generally one-eyed! It doesn't have to be like that.
In her book The Color Purple, Alice Walker reminds us: -
God love admiration
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing.
I think it [annoys God] if you walk by the color purple in a field
somewhere and don't notice it.
VIEWING STEREO-PAIRS
Suppose that you are standing in the middle of a church, looking up from the floor at the structure of its spire.
In the left-eye view the middle part, the highest, will be slightly left of centre;
in the right-eye view it will be slightly right of centre.
Laid side by side, the left- and right-eye views will be as shown below.
Lower your head towards the middle of the diagram until it is close to your eyes.
Relax all your eye muscles (breathe out). Allow your eyes to see three blurred squares.
Forget the two outer ones on the edge of your field of view. Just look at the middle square.
Now slowly move your head away to a comfortable distance. The middle square will come into focus.
You will see up into the church spire, the inner circle far above, then the middle circle,
with the outer frame quite close above your head. The flat screen yields a wonderful impression of depth.
A shark catching fish
How many fish does the shark
get? He gets just the middle fish. The other two fish are further away from the
snapping jaws.
That is 'relaxed-eye' viewing. The largest picture size
cannot exceed the separation of the viewer's eyes, roughly 6 cm. 'Cross-eye'
viewing enables one to see big pictures. Stereo-pairs shown here are generally presented this way.
Look at the left picture with your right eye, and vice
versa. Crank in the muscles which point the eyes as though squinting at
something close up, but keep the focusing muscles more relaxed, as appropriate
for normal comfortable focusing. Concentrate on the middle image, and
allow it to come into focus. (The escaping fish are now seen to be nearer
to the viewer, rather than further away.) Once you have discovered the
conditioned reflex, cross-eye viewing is simply like flicking a switch from
normal to stereo settings. The brain locks on to the stereo. (back)
STEREOS OF PLANTS
This Alexandra rose is a good subject for a stereo because its petals have intricate curves and they are arranged
in a compact group which stands out well from the background. They are easy for the brain to latch on to.
Natural roses have only 5 petals. This is a hybrid. The pair on the left is for relaxed-eye viewing;
the pair on the right for cross-eye: The trio features two of the left-eye view with a right-eye view in the
middle (LRL).
1. Block off right hand picture. 2. Lower your head to place each eye above picture.
3. Gradually lift head to a comfortable distance
1. Block off left hand picture. 2. Cross your eyes. 3. Relax
Relaxed-eye viewing demands presentation at small size.
Accepting this limitation, members of the Stereoscopic Society produce very fine
relaxed-eye stereos. Where large size is deemed highly desirable, only cross-eye stereos are presented.
The seeing of cross-eye stereos is not generally difficult.
It does take time to learn the conditioned reflex.
Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) on Trayfoot Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia, USA (May)
Pink buds with ten-fold symmetry open into goblet-shaped white flowers
Pink azalea (Rhododendron periclymenoides?) in Shenandoah National Park (May)
Wildflowers at Olympos on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey (December). Lantana camara?
It is difficult to try to discriminate between possible alternatives to be found in an ordinary one-eye wildflower guide.
Oh that we had lots of stereo wildflower guide books!
It seems desirable to retain the flowers at top right and top left.
These are at a different range from the others. What has caused the different red colours?
Oak leaves photographed from the Great Wall of China (August)
The leaves are cuneate and lobulate: Quercus mongolica/dentata, a hybrid (?)
Mulberry (Morus) leaves photographed from the Great Wall (August)
These leaves are acuminate, lobulate and serrated in a distinctive way. Examples of Morus alba resemble them.
One of the views is slightly out of focus - but the brain helps itself to the best of the information from both pictures.
Stereo photography is easy!
Waterwheel on the Yellow River, for irrigation for villages upstream near Beichangtan, Ningxia, China.
Compare this with the view by Trevor Patton
From the Yellow River, irrigation of the Tengger Desert near Zhongwei.
Note in stereo that the level of the main supply of water (see the foreground)
is substantially above that of the local channel,
which in turn is above the level at which the mixed vegetation has been planted.
A shrub popular with camels on the fringes of the Tengger Desert near Zhongwei (August).
Hedysarum scoparium Fisch. et Mey. (Identified by Dr Li Xinrong of the Shapotou Desert Experimental Research Station).
It retards blowing desert sand.
Birch bark in the Adirondack mountains of upper New York State, USA (May). The bark of the tree shows up nicely.
The central vertical is relatively easy to hold and bring into focus. The peelings of paper thin bark stand out clearly.
It seems that one could touch them. Why is the bark black at the top of the picture?
How often do we look through botanical books for identification of a plant, and find that the evidence is not quite good enough to be sure?
Single pictures of tree bark often do not help much.
A descending branch of Noble Fir (Abies procera) with the bole of the tree on the left.
Behind it, redder in colour, is the bole of a Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). Thirlestane Court, July 1997
This thistle, on Stave Island in the St Lawrence River, Ontario,
is relatively difficult for the brain to acquire because it is hidden in the grass.
How many leaves has it? [Six, counting a small one just right of centre. The nearest leaf has been damaged] (back)
STEREOS FROM LIFE
I used to have a simple stereo beam splitter which fitted on to the front of my the 55 mm lens of my camera.
It divided the frame into two halves, corresponding to two eyes 7 cm apart. Now Fuji have brought out a stereo camera (see
www.fujifilm.com/products/3d/camera/finepix_real3dw1/features/index.html)
An Exmoor pony of the National Trust in the Devil's
Punch Bowl, Surrey. His fur is rather rough and bits of breakfast hay are on his back.
Caragh and Sinead Hunter on a child's swing (March 1997)
Mrs Priti Patel glowing with the good health of her pregnancy (March 1997)
Red Admiral butterfly settled on Horse Mint. The picture was taken in the ordinary way, not with a beam splitter.
The butterfly moved just a little, so the portrait is not perfect. It does show the size and shape of the creature,
and how it relates to the mint.
Venus de Milo at the Louvre in Paris. The statue was found in 1820 by a peasant on the Greek island of Melos, or Milo,
in the Mediterranean halfway between Athens and Crete. It was sold to the French government for £240.
The fine details are well captured in stereo. The skin appears wonderfully smooth
Laughing Buddha in the
grounds near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi'an, China
Bronze Ox at the Summer Palace, Beijing. In 1755, Emperor Qianlong ordered it cast so as to control floods
Terracotta warriors for Emperor Qin Shi Huang (d 210 BC), situated 40 km east of Xi'an
Kneeling archer of the terracotta warriors. Excellent photos are provided in the small book by Jane Portal
"The Terracotta Warriors" (British Museum Press, 2007),
but they are not stereo-pairs
Monk at the North Pagoda, Yinchuan, China
Jo Ann is a 1912 Aveling Porter agricultural engine belonging to Mrs Janet Rowland,
kept as part of a magnificent collection of steam engines at
Hollycombe Steam and Woodland Garden Society [June 1997].
Jason Hooker on the left was receiving driving instructions from David Dawtry;
they kindly agreed to remain stationary for long enough for me to take the two views,
separated by three steps sideways. (back)
STEREOS OF BUILDINGS
The Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, is a straightforward subject for a stereo pair.
The solid quality of the building, in local stone typical of Oxford, is pleasingly conveyed in stereo.
The Observatory is modeled on the Tower of the Winds, Athens, and was built around 1783.
The balustrade comes out clearly, and one can see through the east window to the west window on the other side.
Around the top of the octagonal tower are figures representing the winds.
Thirlestane Court was built around 1896 for the watercolour artist W. Biscombe Gardner. The view is towards NW.
August 2003. A few years before, the roof of the S wing of Thirlestane Court was rebuilt. This view is towards SSE.
Fine details may be seen, both close by and among the distant trees.
Squares feature in the structure of Stratford Hall, the family home of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
This plantation is in the northern neck of Virginia between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers. It was completed about 1730.
The four-fold chimney with arches and balustrades is remarkable, also the big staircase leading up to the door.
Machu Picchu, Peru, "was built as a royal hacienda for Inca Yupanqui- Pachacuti- during his reign (1438-1471)"
according to a notice in the Museo Inka in Cuzco. Here is the first sight of it (by Lee Chandler) on approach along the Inca Trail,
shortly after passing through the Sun gate Intipunku.
This retreat was perched on its ridge - a very private place.
On the far side of the central green area is the tower of the Intihuatana or "Hitching Post of the Sun".
Machu Picchu, at altitude around 2430 m, seen from near the top of Huayna Picchu (2640 m).
[A small cloud was passing at the time of the right-eye view.]
The ground falls away sheer to the right (west) and more gradually to the east (left).
The modern bus station is at left, below the incoming Inca Trail.
Note in stereo the tower of the Intihuatana at front right.
Machu Picchu, seen on the approach along the Inca Trail (by Joy Jonstone). To the north, Huayna Picchu is in the background;
the trail up it may be discerned on its west side, on the left.
Taken first, the right-eye view was rotated slightly and trimmed;
taken 10 min later at the point on the Inca Trail where the trees below it end, the left-eye view was reduced before mounting.
The view from above shows that the base line, the Inca Trail, was far from normal to directions of view.
The brain compensates for distortions, and allows inclusion of parts of the pictures not covered in stereo. (back)
The southern part of Machu Picchu looking north. The Hut of the Caretaker of the Funerary Rock is perched high up in the background.
Many of the buildings in the foreground of this view appear in the foreground of the previous view,
but are seen from the opposite direction.
Lower buildings of Winay Wayna ("Forever Young", around 2700 m), close to Machu Picchu
Buildings and terraces of Winay Wayna; the Rio Urubamba below.
Details of buildings of Winay Wayna. Note the trapezoidal doorway and the little stone pegs.
Curved walls of Phuyu Pata Marca ("Cloud-level Town", around 3600 m). Of the late Inca style,
the site is treated in "The Inca Trail" by Richard Danbury (and Alexander Stewart).
The Inca Trail passes just below the little tambo or way station Concha Marca, nearly hidden by trees.
On a small (unplanned) baseline, the right-eye view was by Joy Jonstone.
The Inca settlement Patallacta (2700 m), down where the Rio Cusichaca (included here) flows into the Urubamba.
The Inca Trail is seen ascending at right. Hugh Thomson presents modern views of Peruvian history in his book "The White Rock".
The left-eye view was taken by Joy Jonstone.
Sacsayhuaman, above Cuzco, Peru
The ninth Inca, Pachacuti, started the building of this fortress-temple.
There are three terraces built in zigzags like the teeth of a great saw (see the top picture),
for ease of defence. Upper level structures were destroyed. (back)
The Great Wall of China at Mutianyu north of Beijing
The modern Wall dates from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644)
and stretches from the coast east of Beijing as far as Gansu Province.
The Da Yan or Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Xi'an, China (rebuilt AD 701-4). (See the blogs by
Kungfu Panda James)
The pink shrub is Crepe Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica)(?)
Within the Great Mosque, Xi'an, China
Detail of roof at the Great Mosque
Sentry platform and rampart tower on the city wall of Xi'an, China (from AD 1370). There are 98 defensive ramparts on the wall,
120 m apart.
Up on this wall, a 9.5 km ride on a hired bicycle may be enjoyed
Another roof, here at the Xuankong Si Temple, which dates from the 6th Century,
built up on a cliff 65 km southeast of Datong, China
The 108 Dagobas, the largest Buddhist stupa group in China,
on the Yellow River just upstream of its dam at Qingtongxia, Ningxia, China.
Renovated, they date from the 14th Century
Mill wheel at a village near Beichangtan, on the Yellow River upstream from Zhongwei, China. (back)
Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, 200 km south of Delhi on the Yamuna river, was of equal status with Delhi in the 16th and 17th centuries,
the time of the Moghul emperors. Shahjahan built the Taj as a permanent resting place for his wife Mumtaz Mahal,
who died in 1630 after giving birth to her fourteenth child. The stereo shows the octagonal tower,
and three of the five domes upon it (with part of a fourth dome obscured); also the four surrounding minarets.
A part of the extensive Phrygian city of Hierapolis
Tombs of its necropolis are found over a wide area of hillside.
It was a cure centre that prospered under the Romans and Byzantines (Turkey, Lonely Planet Guide).
A Lycian tomb on the island of the village of Kalekoy (by the ancient city of Simena), Turkey.
Compare the nearby coastal topography of Kekova, below.
A tower of tuff (consolidated volcanic ash) in the Rose Valley, Cappadocia, Turkey.
Such towers are placed under Buildings because early inhabitants carved out dwellings within them: -
Frescos within a church inside rock (not the tower above) in the Rose Valley, Cappadocia
A church inside rock - Goreme Museum, Turkey
The churches were carved out of the rock by Christian monks between roughly 900 and 1200 AD.
Note in stereo the careful shaping of the roof.
The painting shows Mary, seated on an ass, accompanied by Joseph and a servant
on the road to Bethlehem
for the first population census by Caesar Augustus. (back)
STEREOS OF ROCK FORMATIONS
More towers of tuff in the Rose Valley, Cappadocia, Turkey
The green colour probably resulted from
chemical weathering
involving copper carbonates and hydroxide
Travertine, calcium carbonate, shelves at Pamukkale, Turkey
The shelves are imitated by the brick structure in the foreground.
The curative mineral waters gave rise to the spa city Hierapolis.
Note winter haze concentrated near the ground (December 2007)
Overhanging Cliff, at Tower in the north of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming [August 1971].
Here we see vertical grain structures with pieces chipped away to leave jagged surfaces.
The merits of stereo-pairs for documentation become clear.
It is much easier to present a stereo-pair such as this than to try to describe the structures of the layers with single photographs plus
drawings and dimensions. Such pictures would be useful for recordings of strata laid bare during archaeology.
In the north of Yellowstone National Park is Petrified Tree, the stump of a redwood still standing where it grew some 37 million years ago.
In each cell of the tree, silica from volcanic ash was deposited, petrifying the tree and creating an exact stone replica.
In stereo the central core of heartwood may be distinguished from the outer sapwood.
In northeastern Wyoming, Yellowstone Lake at 2360 m lies just south of the Continental Divide.
Draining it to the north is the Yellowstone River. It cuts through the spectacular Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
The whole area of Yellowstone National Park is underlain by crust which is rather thin,
and there are hydrothermal features the like of which are to be found elsewhere only in Iceland and New Zealand.
The Lower Falls, 94 m high, at the head of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone are shown in the stereo-pair,
taken near Artist's Point about 1 km to the east, on the south rim of the Canyon.
A baseline of roughly 100 m was available for taking the left and right-eye views.
The rock is rhyolite, a form of rather viscous and frothy lava containing 70% silica.
Orange and yellow coloring is due to the presence of iron. Durability is variable,
and erosion has left innumerable fine structures in the walls of the Canyon, readily appreciated in stereo.
The water of the river is clear. Its green color is due to algae and moss growing on the rocks of the river bed. (back)
Half Dome (2700 m) in Yosemite National Park, California [June 1982]. It is seen looking east from Glacier Point at a distance of 4 km.
Glacier Point affords just enough walking space, a few hundred meters, to give a suitable baseline for a left and a right-eye view.
The valley of the Merced River is down to the left. Glacial ice carved through weaker sections of the granite,
scouring out the rock but leaving harder portions intact, and enlarging the canyon that the river had carved
through successive uplifts of the Sierra. The sharpness of the edges and the smoothness of the dome are most striking,
as though it were a piece of cheese.
Interesting stereo-pairs can often be taken among mountains, at lesser or greater scales.
A baseline of about 10 m is available on Old Rag Mountain, Virginia, an outlier from the Blue Ridge of the Appalachian mountains.
The rounded shapes of the rocks contrast with the delicate branches of the trees growing from crevices between them.
Phil Wharmby, and Lou Van Zwanenberg and Joy Jonstone,
standing by the Yauca River Canyon close to the Pan American highway on the Pacific coast of Peru (see also a
view from space)
Chivay, Peru, local centre near the Cruz del Condor. Situated at altitude 3630 m in a broad valley,
the town is well above the Rio Colca in its canyon. Photos by Lee Chandler
Hills NW of Puno, Peru, bordering Lake Titicaca (3810 m). An old steamship lies here:
Lee Chandler photographed this ship with a telephoto lens.
The granite peak of Huayna Picchu, Peru (2640 m), approaching from Machu Picchu.
The trail for its ascent goes across the front of this view and up the left - west - side.
Turkish coastal topography at Kekova on the Mediterranean.
Stereo viewing is essential here to see the rocky hillocks. (back)
On the Yellow River floating downstream near Yemingshan, about 25 km upstream of Zhongwei, Ningxia Province, China.
The valley of Helankou, Ningxia Province, China
Note the man-made walls confining the course of the (dry) river,
on the east foot of Helan mountain 45 km northwest of Yinchuan.
Rock engravings are found throughout the 300 km length of the Helan mountain range;
their dates are on the order of thousands of years (see the book by Paul G. Bahn,
"The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art", 1998)
A Helankou carving possibly representing the Sun
A Helankou group of figures
Helankou figures and faces, looking like casual graffiti
rather than sacred objects of reverence. (back)
STEREOS OF CLOUDS
Everybody should consider joining The Cloud Appreciation Society.
Its founder, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, has written a brilliant small book called "The Cloudspotter's Guide", data and messages interlaced with stories.
Cumulus clouds seen from 5200 m over the foothills of south central Alberta (August 1976).
A rising cumulus tower must be accompanied by compensating subsidence somewhere. The picture implies that this occurs mostly locally,
at least for clouds of modest size: the appearance of the rings of cloud remnants implies that they were held in place by weak stable layers,
then pushed aside by air moving sideways and downwards out of the way of the new cumulus.
The lower ring might mark the crest of a gravity wave expanding radially, but the texture and details appear to deny this.
Cumulus over the plains of Alberta southeast of Red Deer, at altitude 4600 m (August 1976). A typical young tower is shown on the left.
The anvil has spread out from its predecessors. It has an upper sunlit layer, and another separate thin layer in shadow.
Below flight level there is another layer at which cumulus towers have been spreading out.
At bottom right may be seen smaller clouds far below close to the ground.
The two views were taken as fast as I was able - a second or two - to give a baseline of about 100 m.
I used a lens of focal length 28 mm, and a polarizing filter to darken the sky.
Cumulus and stratocumulus over the Andes, and icy mountain tops in clear air, seen looking south about halfway between Cuzco and Puerto Maldonado,
Peru (photos by Lee Chandler, July 2008). Fine structure may be seen through the depth of the cloud layer.
Ice free mountains penetrated the cloud layer.
Above the levels of icy mountain tops, the stratocumulus seen in the background appears to have been at close to flight level.
Note also confinement in the vertical of haze &/or smoke.
Looking north from altitude 10 km over Mongolia close to UlaanBaatar (0745 UTC, 27 July 2009, flying from London to Beijing).
I waited about 5 seconds between left- and right-eye views. Note in stereo the thin layer of patchy altostratus
Looking southwest from altitude 10.7 km over the Sayan Mountains of central Asia (0400 UTC, 11 August 2009, flying Beijing-London).
Diffuse remnants of cumulus at different levels; dense new cumulus towers.
For computer forecasts of weather and climate,
it is necessary to assess rates of heating and of cooling by calculating the energy flows of radiation.
There is a downward flow of solar radiation, which can be scattered by clouds.
There are flows both upward and downward of thermal radiation, from the earth, from clouds and from the air.
The stereo view shows how complex are the paths through which the radiation percolates.
Clouds over the South China Sea, seen looking W from 7800 m (11 Dec 1978).
During the winter monsoon air from the cold land mass of Asia flows out
over the South China Sea and heads SW towards the area of Borneo and Singapore. It starts out cold and dry.
On its way it gradually picks up heat and moisture from the underlying sea. (Here it has reached 12.2 degrees N.)
Millions of tiny cumulus clouds are involved. Larger cumulus progressively increase in numbers; the moist layer deepens.
Near the Equator much of this flow finally rises in tall cumulonimbus of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
(Compare this to a similar view taken a day later)
Cumulus like these have not often been closely examined - over the South China Sea
[at 8.8 degrees N, 112.9 E, altitude 6500 m, 1118 local time on 30 Dec 1978] looking N.
Mounted on the left, the right-eye picture was taken hastily first, looking aft out of a starboard side window as the aircraft flew southwestwards.
The clouds were close by, and the left-eye picture, better aimed, was taken without much delay.
The right-eye picture was reduced in size to compensate for the change in range between the two views.
The relatively rare and complicated arrangement of clouds was overpassed by the aircraft very quickly; hence the haste in recording it.
A pattern like this was recorded at 1504 on 17 Dec.
The tropical oceans show a great variety of patterns still to be explored and understood.
Clouds (entropy sources) over the east coast of Borneo during the Winter Monsoon
Cumulus towers close to the west of Sumatra seen from altitude 7470 m (9 Dec 1978). The highest tower had just pushed its way upwards,
displacing air in its way. A thin layer of moist air had condensed in this displaced air, to form a curved cap of pileus cloud.
Note in stereo the variety in textures and heights of high clouds. Note evidence of light winds all the way upwards from the surface
(see bottom left).
Clouds over the Java Sea near the Equator (at altitude 3500 m on 6 Dec 1978, looking WSW).
The clouds were nearly vertical, showing that vertical shear of the wind was slight.
There were several distinct stable layers at which fragments of cloud came to rest.
Note directionality near the surface. It seems that near-surface winds were from roughly NW, backing with height.
Note fine structure in the cirrus aloft.
A dissipating cumulonimbus seen from altitude 9100 m over the Bay of Bengal (all by itself at 11.6 degrees N, 90 E on 5 July 1979).
A monsoon depression was growing vigorously 800 km to the north; this cloud was situated in the westerly monsoon flow in the central Bay.
The partial stereo shows that much of the cloud consisted of streamers of precipitation. At the top there were small (shallow) cumuliform towers,
and slender cumulus towers may be seen at low levels. These pictures show a variety of fine structures.
Tall cumulus seen from 4300 m on approaching Calcutta (5 July 1979).
The vigorous circulation of the monsoon depression was to the east and south
(see the page bay.html). Note the haze at low levels, and thin layers of stratus.
One can take stereo pairs of clouds from the ground. Instead of flying past them in an aircraft one can wait for them to drift by in the wind.
Tufts of cirrus were recorded on the morning of 15 November 1986 as the cloud drifted over Haslemere, Surrey.
When taking pictures like these the camera should be aimed directly across the direction of motion of the most interesting clouds.
The clouds were drifting from the southwest and were photographed looking northwestwards as they drifted from left to right.
The interval between taking the pictures should be such that the clouds change in direction by about 4 degrees.
The camera should be aimed continuously at the center of interest. If the wait is too long, the clouds may evolve too much.
Looking upwards at an elevation of roughly 30 degrees, the left-eye view was taken 40 seconds after the right-eye view.
With 35 mm film, a 55 mm lens was used, and a polarizing filter to darken the sky and show up the tufts and fibres of ice crystals.
The clouds were at an altitude of several kilometres.
This stereo pair was taken looking north from Grayswood Hill in Surrey (1015 GMT, 14 April 1990).
The motion of dense white clouds was from the WSW.
The altocumulus cloud drifted more slowly across the field of view, so its greater height is revealed in the picture.
I waited 24 seconds between pictures in this case.
Cumulus cloud over Morgedal, Norway. Seen looking vertically upwards,
blobs and filaments on the flank of this cloud have been dispersed by turbulent eddies.
Stereo viewing brings out the fine texture of the cloud elements, and their spread in height above the camera.
(back)
Important NEWS for forecasting
of weather and climate has recently appeared in the form of articles by Roderick C. Dewar:
See "Maximum entropy production and the fluctuation theorem" in the Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General (2005).
He proceeded from information theory developed by Claude Shannon in 1948 at the Bell Telephone Laboratories to demonstrate the
validity of a constraint on production of entropy. For a gas, entropy (energy per unit of temperature), is an extensive property
rather like volume (energy per unit of pressure). The climate scientist Garth W. Paltridge has been getting interesting results
on the basis of entropy production since 1975, but he is one of only a few interested people. Dewar has made it clear that
maxima of entropy production can apply rigorously to natural phenomena. The statistics are user friendly, with smoothly varying behavior,
and entropy can be defined as information in any number of interesting ways, as it was for telephone communications.
A great potential exists for construction of "real life" statistical mechanical constraints to apply in computer forecasts of weather.
This is independent of the usual "clockwork mouse" machinery of weather prediction, based on the Navier-Stokes equations.
The clockwork mouse is crippled by non-linearity in the arrangements, and weather forecasts have often been the subject of general derision.
After some exploratory studies of climate related to topography, with imaginative combination of old and new constraints,
forecasting could now be improved. (back)
TAKING STEREO-PAIRS
is easy.
It does not require accurate work. Take the left-eye picture; move sideways so that the object of
interest changes in direction from you by roughly 4 degrees (just as though you
were looking at an object on a table), then take the right-eye picture. Keep
aiming at the object of interest and keep the camera level. Slight inaccuracy
does not matter. The final stereo has greater resolution than each individual
picture. If one has a digital camera with resolution x dots per square mm, the
stereo will be seen with better resolution than this, because one is
synthesizing two overlapping images. It does not matter if the exposure or the
focus of one of the views differs slightly from that of the other. Don't worry: be happy.
The only aspect of stereo-pair photography which calls
for special care is the mounting of the two views side by side, after prints have been made, as shown in the diagram below:
How to align (with the horizon) and trim
(along the dotted lines) a stereo-pair
After placing the two views side by side, they can be
moved up and down relative to one another, and also rotated as shown by the
arrows A and B. The horizon should be aligned across the two views. Adjustments
should be made until the result feels optimal when viewed in stereo. Precision
is not vitally important. Having settled the relative placement of the two
views, trimming top and bottom should be parallel to the horizon. Trimming at
the sides should be such as to exclude material not present in both views, to
make the views as small in width as possible, concentrating on the object of interest.
(Significant improvement can come from changing slightly the magnification of one of the pictures if the object of interest is at different ranges in the two views.)
An excellent program called Stereo Photo Maker is now available:
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr.
This website uses www.google.com/analytics. Google Inc will record users' activities (see GA terms of service, 8.1)
Gale Rhodes gives an eloquent introduction to stereo viewing - essential for structural chemists - at spdbv.vital-it.ch/TheMolecularLevel/0Help/StereoView.html
Boris Starosta presents superb
cross-eye art work at www.starosta.com/stereo.html
Images of Mars may be found at www.stereoscopy.com/mars/
See Tony Bignell's moving bevel gears at www.abignell.id.au/stereo/crosseye/spiralbevc.html.
I thank Tony for leading me to Stereo Photo Maker.
Surely it is time for new philosophy. Each of us individually should Care
for the whole planet rather than just self, family or nation. As we become more
knowledgeable about ourselves and other creatures it seems that we shall perceive our true place in the world.
David Attenborough ended his Natural World film "Cheeky Monkey" with the words
".. what makes us human isn't just human after all".
The anthropocentric view that mankind is unique should surely be abandoned.
Instead of worshipping authority, we should think for ourselves and lead by example.
Stereo viewing enhances awareness of the wonders of nature.
Jet (1936-52) was our family Black labrador dog. In his
old age he became rather ponderous and slow. My father used to get giggles out
of his young family by the disrespectful suggestion "Jet's a moo
cow". The exclamation "Jetsamoocow!" can mean "Truly an Expert in the Field! Wonderful!" or alternatively "Not really very bright. Not easily to be moooved" (back)
Illustrated below, small cards like bookmarks measuring about 105 by 55 mm, to facilitate learning, can be provided
at £1 each (or US$2), to be snailmailed on receipt of your choice of card(s), a postal address and payment via www.paypal.com. A cover charge of £2 per order (US$4) is for postage and administration (minimum total: £5~$10). Thank you. (back)
clouds
rose
Radcliffe
pony
birch
Old Rag
Not much money yet; lots of fun: Zhongwei, 1 Aug 09, by Carol Penn
Charles Warner: Curriculum Vitae
Date of birth: 1 August 1938. Nationality: British. Marital status: Single
Work experience and education
Lately: Reading, writing and arithmetic
Jan - Apr 01: Research on rain with T. N. Krishnamurti at Florida State University, Tallahassee
Sept 87 - Jan 90: Senior
Scientific Officer at the Meteorological Office
Worked on the UK weather
radar network
Jan 87 - Mar 87: Supply teacher
of mathematics. Woolmer Hill School, Haslemere
Nov 84 – June 86: Research assistant in satellite meteorology at the Hooke Institute
for Atmospheric Research, the University of Oxford
Mar 77 – Aug 84: Research assistant professor. Cloud photogrammetry
at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville
July 75 – Mar 77: Research associate. Studies of Alberta hailstorms
at McGill University, Montreal
Mar 72 – July 75: Post-doctoral
research fellow. Radar meteorology at the
Dept. of Electronic &
Electrical Engineering, the University of Birmingham, UK
Feb 66 – Feb 72: Student and
research assistant at McGill University, Montreal.
Ph.D. 1971: Visual and radar aspects of large convective storms
M.Sc. 1967: Measurement of snowfall by optical attenuation
Sept 65 – Jan 66: Crossed the
Atlantic under sail, with three others
Sept 63 – Sept 65: Research
metallurgist. Studied compounds of Platinum at
Johnson Matthey Research
Labs., Wembley
1960 - 1963: St. John’s College,
Cambridge. Natural Sciences Tripos
Part I (1962): Class II Division I
Part
II (1963): Class II Division II in Metallurgy
B.A.(Hons). M.A. awarded in
1967
1956 – 1961: Saunders-Roe
Limited, East Cowes, Isle of Wight,
and Isle of Wight Technical
College
Completed apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering
Obtained ONC
(1957) and HNC (1959) of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
1951 – 1956: Student at Radley
College, Abingdon. Mathematics and Physics to ‘A’ level
A strong Department of Geography there, run by John Harris, shows weather forecasts for the UK.
Professional Memberships
Fellow, Royal Meteorological Society
Member, American Meteorological Society
Member, American
Geophysical Union
Prize
The 1983 James Paton Memorial Prize of the Royal
Meteorological
Society, Scottish Branch, for photographs published in the
article
‘Stereo-pair photographs of cumulus clouds’, Weather, 38,
178-182. (back)
Refereed publications (plus selected reports: good homes are sought for factual reports dating from 1982-6; also for MONEX data and cloud photo collections, with a view to continuation of this kind of work). Please, if you like it, link it
Stereo-pair photographs from a surface vantage point. Weather, 61, 135-6, 2006.
Entropy sources in equilibrium conditions over a tropical ocean. J. Atmos. Sci., 62, 1588-1600. 2005.
(back)
Stereo-pair photographs of clouds. Weather, 58, 84-9.
2003. [Compare with the hailstorm described in Wave patterns .., 1976. Common to these two cases was a shallow layer of great stability]
Rings of a beech tree and a Norway spruce compared with
climate. Weather, 50, 73-80. 1995.
A Short History of Witley. Witley Parish Council – Official Guide.
Feb. 1993.
Stereo-pair photographs of cirrus cloud. Weather, 42, 373.
1987.
International Cloud Atlas. Volume II. W. M. O. Plates 153 and 156.
1987.
LEO – Low Equatorial Orbiter. Weather, 41, 388-93. 1986.
Microwave brightness temperature statistics, near the UK; finding cloud and rain. Oxford University, Dept. of Atmospheric Physics. 16pp + maps. 1986. [Many seasonal maps of North Atlantic data from MSU 1-4; original methods for fitting Gaussian curves to truncated histograms]
Satellite observations of a monsoon depression. Final report to NASA under grant NAG5-297. 54 + 17pp. 1984. NTIS PB84-212059 (Fig. 38 later corrected). Natnl. Tech. Info. Service, Box 1425, Springfield VA 22151, USA. [MSU and SMMR compared with diverse other data]
Satellite observations of a monsoon depression. 15th Conf. on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, 9-13 Jan., 1984.
Miami, FL. Boston, Amer. Meteor. Soc., 386-93.
Stereo-pair photographs of monsoon clouds. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc.,
65, 344-7. 1984.
Aircraft measurements of convective draft cores in MONEX. J. Atmos.
Sci., 41, 430-8.
1984. Lead author with D. P. McNamara.
Cloud distributions in a Bay of Bengal monsoon depression. Mon. Wea.
Rev., 112,
153-72. 1984. Lead author with R. H. Grumm.
Core structure of a Bay of Bengal monsoon depression. Mon. Wea. Rev.,
112,
137-52. 1984. (on p 144 read 1.7 not 2.6 and 0.9 not 1.7)
Stereo-pair photographs of cumulus clouds. Weather, 38, 178-82.
1983.
Cloud maps for 20 June 1979 over the Arabian Sea: Summer MONEX. Report to the National Science Foundation under Grants ATM-8210128 and 8012214. Charlottesville, Univ. of Virginia. 11pp. 1983. [Triangular track; layers of stratus; draft cores and soundings]
Cloud maps for 24 June 1979 over the Arabian Sea: Summer MONEX. Report to the National Science Foundation under Grants ATM-8210128 and 8012214. Charlottesville, Univ. of Virginia. 47pp. 1982. NTIS PB84-231108. [Characteristics of individual cumulus; maps; number densities and area coverages; recordings of short and long wave fluxes of radiation]
Mesoscale features and cloud organization on 10-12 December over the South
China Sea.
J. Atmos. Sci., 39, 1619-41. 1982. [The data are not inconsistent with inflection point instability (Brown 1970)]
Photogrammetry from aircraft side camera movies: Winter MONEX. J.
Appl.Meteor.,
20, 1516-26. 1981.
Multiscale analysis of low-level vertical fluxes on day 261 of GATE. J.
Atmos. Sci., 38, 1964-76.
1981. Junior author with W. M. Frank and G. D.
Emmitt.
Comments following “Observations of two Colorado thunderstorms by means of a
zenith-pointing Doppler radar”: a wall chart of a severe storm.
J.
Appl. Meteor., 20, 214-6. 1981.
Reply. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 1705-8. 1980. Lead author with J. Simpson,
D. W. Martin,
F. R. Mosher and R. F. Reinking.
Cloud measurements on day 245 of GATE. Atmos.-Ocean, 18, 207-26.
1980.
Deep convection on day 261 of GATE. Mon. Wea. Rev., 108, 169-94.
1980.
Lead author with J. Simpson, G. Van Helvoirt, D. W. Martin, D.
Suchman,
and G. L. Austin.
Shallow convection on day 261 of GATE: Mesoscale arcs. Mon. Wea. Rev.,
107,
1617-35. 1979. Lead author with J. Simpson, D. W. Martin, D. Suchman,
F. R. Mosher and R. F. Reinking.
Photogrammetry from aircraft nose camera movies. J. Appl.Meteor., 17,
1416-20. 1978.
Statistics of radar echoes on day 261 of GATE. Mon. Wea. Rev., 106,
983-94. 1978.
Lead author with G. L. Austin.
Collision frequencies of raindrops. IEEE Trans. Ant. Prop., AP-25,
583-5. 1977.
Scattering and depolarization of microwaves by spheroidal raindrops. Radio
Sci.,
11, 921-30. 1976. Lead author with A. Hizal.
Wave patterns with an Alberta hailstorm. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 57,
780-7. 1976. [The storm was probably affected by Pigeon Lake, of area 90 km(2). Compare with Stereo-pair paper of 2003]
Effects of shape and orientation of spheroidal raindrops on microwave
scattering.
Electronics Letters, 24 July 1975, 11, 328-30.
Measurements of rainfall and microwave attenuation by radar. Proc. Conf.
on
Env. Sensors and Applictns. IERE Conf. Proc. No. 29, 145-54.
1974.
Co-author with A. M. R. Al-Ubaidy, J. A. Edwards and T. Pratt.
Measurements of mamma. Weather, 28, 394-7. 1973.
Radar and photo studies of Alberta hailstorms. Weather, 28, 293-9.
1973.
Stereo-photogrammetry of cumulonimbus clouds. Quart J. Roy. Meteor.
Soc., 99,
105-13. 1973. Lead author with J. H. Renick, M. W. Balshaw and
R. H. Douglas.
Calculations of updraft shapes in storms. J. Atmos. Sci., 29, 1516-9.
1972.
Observations and theory of a hailstorm. J. Rech. Atmos., 6, 141-53.
1972.
Co-author with M. English and W. Hitschfeld.
Measurement of snowfall by optical attenuation. J. Appl. Meteor., 8,
110-21. 1969.
Lead author with K. L. S. Gunn.
(back)
Copyright Dr Charles Warner, Thirlestane Court, Tilford Rd,
Hindhead, Surrey, GU26 6SH, UK
Please, if you like it, link it
Email jetsamoocow@clara.co.uk.