letters.(Letter to the Editor)

Sleight-of-Hand Architecture

I am writing about the article on pg. 46 of your June 2001 issue entitled "Expressive Architecture." I agree that sometimes nonphotorealistic architectural renderings provide presentations that are more effective than those with photoreal renderings. Based on my experience, most clients prefer a hand-drawn rendering--or at least a rendering that looks hand drawn--because it conveys a certain loose and light touch. Furthermore, clients like to view their projects as works of art. Therefore, I have also been exploring new ways of creating digital architectural illustrations that retain the manually drawn look my clients are used to seeing.

As an aside, I noticed that most of the nonphotorealistic samples you featured were created in the UK, United Arab Emirates, and Brazil. I thought the US examples in your article still looked computer generated. As an example of US-based nonphotorealistic architectural rendering, I'm sending a sample of one of my works, originally modeled in autodessys's formZ.

Emmanuel "Noni" de Guzman President NPerspective Kissimmee, FL

Flat-Panel Stereo

The article "Degrees of Freedom" on pg. 36 of your May 2001 issue, which discussed autostereoscopic displays, did not include my company's Dresden 3D Display. Dresden 3D currently manufactures a flat-screen LCD monitor that measures 18.1 inches diagonally, features a digital DVI interface and SXGA resolution, and provides consistently brilliant imagery in stereo.

The most important feature of the display is that, through our proprietary eye-tracking ...