For Sale (soon)

3-D DC-3 DVD

$33.33

Introduction

In July 2010, a large group of Douglas DC-3 / C-47 were reunited by the organization The Last Time at Rockfalls - Whiteside County (KSQI) airport in Illinois, on their way to the Oshkosh air show. No less than 26 DC-3 variants (and one DC-2) landed at that airport in preparation for what would be the largest formation flight of DC-3s since World War II. This was in honor of the 75th anniversary of the DC-3, and it is very doubtful so many flying DC-3s will gather at the same location ever again.

annot_TrevMorson_TheDouglasDC3com.jpg Aerial pic by Trev Morson / The DC3 Hangar / douglasdc3.com, with N-numbers added.

More than 15,000 visitors attended this unique historic event, and being a long-time DC-3 fan, and living in Illinois, I was one of them. I took 470 3-D pictures to remember that Sunday, July 25th, 2010, and put them on a DVD-R for others to see too. For me the DC-3 is the epitome of the "little engine that could", a smart and anonymous consolidation of thoughts and actions that quietly helped to build a nation (absolutely).

The planes

Tail # Type Built Serial # Markings Colors Main pic
N1XP DC-3 1942 4733 Duggy Yellow 282
N34 C-47J 1945 33359 FAA White/Orange/Gray 188
N41HQ C-41 1938 2053 USAAF Silver 470
N44V DC-3 1943 4545 Piemnont White/BlueSilver 462
N47E C-47A 1943 13816 Miss Virginia USAF White/Silver 192
N47SJ C-47B 1944 11424 U5 Betsy Olive/Striped 201
N59NA C-47 1943 9043 3J Bones Olive/Striped 140
N97H DC-3C 1945 16865 Hiller White/Red/White 465
N143D DC-3A 1938 2054 Herpa Wings Red/White 160
N150D C-47 1941 4463 41-18401 Camo pale 457
N341A C-41A 1938 2145 speedpack USAAF Silver/Blue/Silver 143
N353MM C-53D 1943 11665 NC43XX Thunderbird White/Black/Silver 217
N737H R4D-1 1942 6062 Airborne Imaging White/RedTips 148
N1934D DC-2 1934 1368 NC13711 TWA Gray 259
N1944H C-47B 1944 17111 Era Classic White/Red/White 157
N2805J AC-47B 1944 20835 Spooky EN 43-770 Camo Nam 170
N3006 DC-3 1946 42961 lightning bolt Silver/Brown/Silver 376
N3239T C-47A 1942 19054 Z8 Tico Belle Olive/Striped 043
N5106X C-47 1942 9058 3A M232832 Olive/Striped 004
N8704 C-47B 1944 16300 USAF Gray rudder White/Silver 253
N18121 C-49G 1937 1997 Eastern Silver 118
N25641 DC-3 1943 9059 Legend Airways White/Blue/Silver 145
N33644 DC-3A 1941 4123 NC33644 Western Gray 204
N47060 C-47H 1943 190060 for sale scrubbed paint 237
N87745 C-49J 1942 6315 T9 41-6531 Olive/Striped 314
N92578 DC-3C 1943 9028 panoramic White/Gray 147
CGDAK C-47 1939 2141 Z KN456 Camo dark 244

If you find errors above, pleaase contact me; I don't want the Internet to propagate more erroneous information than it should....

The pictures

All the pictures are digital stereoscopic 3-D, 10 Megapixels (3648x2736) per side, with a stereo base of 77 mm. The same 470 shots exist in 5 differents formats, each in their own folder:

2D folder = filename.jpg

Plain 2D pictures, for those who cannot or don't want to see in 3D....

DC3_011.jpg sample #011 (reduced resolution; original is 3648 x 2736)

3D_anaglyphic folder = filename_RG.jpg (Red-Green)

Anaglyphic pictures designed to be viewed with those red (left) and green/cyan (right) glasses, if you saved them from the last time you went to midnite 3D movies. Size the picture as large as you can on your monitor, and images can even be zoomed and panned. One inconvenient of this format is the amount of "ghosting" when viewing high-contrast scenes. It is a very 1950 way of viewing 3-D, and this method won't work if you are color-blind.

DC3_011RG.jpg sample #011, wear your Red/Cyan glasses

3D_crossview folder = filename_RL.jpg (Right-Left)

Side-by-side pictures designed to be free-viewed without any glasses, by somewhat unnaturally crossing the eyes. Make the picture as wide as you can on a monitor or a screen without chopping any side. Now, cross your eyes (try looking at the tip of your nose), and you'll see like 3 or 4 unpleasant fuzzy pictures overlapping one another; this is normal. Pick some recognizable fuzzy blob common to all and tilt your head left or right until all 4 are on a same horizontal line, then slowly uncross your eyes. At some point the multiple images will lock into one and the 3D perception will miraculously appear. Increase the eyes to monitor distance if unsuccessful at first. Fatigue or a glass of wine may help. The advantage of the cross-view is that the images can be wide and therefore detailed. Once your eyes are crossed and comfortable, you can switch painlessly to the next shot in your picture viewer without having to redo the rigmarole above.

DC3_011RL.jpg sample #011, cross your eyes

3D_parallel folder = filename_LR.jpg (Left-Right)

Side-by-side pictures designed to be free-viewed without any glasses, with the same approach as above, but without crossing the eyes; try focusing at infinity instead. Since your eyes never diverge in normal life, the width of either image cannot exceed 2.25" (adult interocular distance), so you must shrink the viewing window to twice that width or less. Unless your screen has more than 1216 dots per inch, you are going to lose a lot of 3-D in the size reduction. With experience, though, you can learn to diverge your eyes. This is the format of the "stereo-cards" used in 19th century steroscopes.

DC3_011LR.jpg sample #011, reduce the separation to 2.25"!

3D_MPO folder = filename.MPO (Multi Picture Object)

Original raw data files in Fuji MPO format, that can be directly viewed on some 3D TVs, and by other methods. All the images above were extracted from those MPOs with the powerful "StereoPhotoMaker" freeware by Suto & Sykes, downloadable from http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/index.html. Some pictures are larger than 5 MB. This is the most promising format, but as of July 2010, there are not many screens that can read it, and they cost $3000....

DC3_011.MPO sample #011, need a 3D MPO reader

Contents of the DVD

The DVD contains pictures ranging from rivet lines glittering in the sun to in flight, on short final to runway 7, but instead of describing them all, here is a ZIP file of the 470 thumbnails.

To order

I was planning to offer all this for free on this website, but in view of the many many hours of painful stereoscopic alignment needed, it is at cost:

DVD-R is $33.33 (cheap!)
plus Illinois tax for IL residents
plus some nominal US/abroad shipping cost

HOWEVER, it is not yet for sale, as I want to double-check that the files are viewable without headache on 3-D TVs, and I have not bought one yet!
There are still some issues with 3-D standards that need to be cleared before this happens.
You can contact me and I'll let you know when the DVD-R is available.

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