[rescue] Re: SGI Onyx4 - uses ATI graphics chips (sigh)

[Curtis H. Wilbar Jr.]

All this is logical... however, once processed, the difference in 
display on a 24 bit display vs a 32 bit color dispaly is probably
imperceptable.... and didn't this whole thread start on what the
display was displaying... not what amount of significant bits were
used in processing ??? or is my memory dropping bits ?

-- Curt

>Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:25:05 -0400
>From: Phil Stracchino <alaric at caerllewys.net>
>To: The Rescue List <rescue at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [rescue] Re: SGI Onyx4 - uses ATI graphics chips (sigh)
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>On Fri, Aug 22, 2003 at 05:59:53AM -0700, Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> Well, I believe I conceded the point about storing the detail for
>> off-line processing, but my statement still stands, what is the point
>> of producing a system to (display) greater detail than the human eye
>> can resolve? Are you entertaining aliens with higher resolution optical
>> sesnses? ;^)
>
>
>There's another point at issue here.
>
>Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the human eye can resolve
>24 bits of color.  (I know I can tell the difference between 24-bit and
>16-bit color.) Suppose also that whatever processing you do on your raw
>data to generate your final image introduces sufficient rounding errors
>and interpolation artifacts that you lose the integrity of the least
>significant 4 bits per color channel.  If you started out with, say, 48
>bits of color information (16 bits per channel), you now have 36 bits of
>good data (12 bits per channel).  If you started out with 24 bits (8
>bits per channel), you now have 12 bits (4 bits per channel) of good
>color data in your final image, and it probably looks like hell.
>
>Any signal processing introduces noise into the data, because you're not
>working with infinite precision.  The secret of getting good results out
>of imperfect data processing is to start out with sufficient precision
>that the final noise level ends up below your perceptible noise floor.
>If you need an answer to six significant digits, and expect to lose
>two digits of precision during the calculation, start out with *at
>least* eight significant digits of data.
>
>
>-- 
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Curtis Wilbar
Hawk Mountain Networks
rescue at hawkmountain.net

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