Rules for Club Competitions

Official Rules for the LA 3-D Club Bi-Monthly Competitions

as adopted by the Club Board on 09/04/2016

I.  GROUPS

Before you enter images in our Bi-Monthly Competitions for the first time, you must confer with the Competition Director or Club President to determine in which Group you are competing. “B” Group is for “Beginners,” those who have never entered one of our competitions, and/or those who are unfamiliar with the quality of images it takes to win high scores, Honorable Mentions, and awards.  If a “B” Group entrant wins a first, second, or third place award at the year end in August, that entrant must move up to compete in the “A” Group starting in the September competition of the new fiscal year, unless the Competition Director allows the member to stay in the “B” Group.  The “A” Group is for more “Advanced” members who have won awards and often have submitted higher quality images.  The judging scores accumulate at Year End (June), and the highest cumulative scores win Year End Awards.  Separate Year End Awards are made for “A”and “B” group entrants in each Category (see “II” Below). A member may be grouped in the “A” group in one category and the “B” group in another category.

II.  CATEGORIES

There are three competition categories: (1) Standard, (2) Modified, and (3) CGI/Art.

(1)  The Standard Category includes stereo photographs you have made by any photographic means, whether by digital or film cameras.  There is no limitation on the amount of digital manipulation you may make to your original photographic film or digital image pair.  If you start with a 2-D photograph (film or digital) which is your own work, a 2-D-to-3-D conversion of it belongs in this category.  Images made by film or digital cameras must be converted to a JPEG digital format before submission to a club competition.

(2)  The Modified Category applies when you haven’t created a substantial part of the image yourself, but you have converted someone else’s art or photo into stereo, or you have performed a substantial creative modification to it.  This category, which must be submitted in digital JPEG format, includes conversions from 2-D to stereo, stereo montages or collages made mostly with images you did not create, and sophisticated restoration and colorizing of vintage images.  Proper permission from the maker(s) or copyright holder(s) of the original image(s) should be provided when requested by the LA 3-D Club if you want your Modified Category image to be published by the club outside of the club’s “3D News.”

(3)  The CGI/Art Category is for stereo images which you have created wholly or substantially in the computer or which you have created wholly or substantially using artistic means, such as drawing or painting.  These images also must be submitted in JPEG format.

The Competition Director shall decide the appropriate category of an image in the event of dispute or uncertainty.


III.  SUBMISSION FORMAT AND SCORE CARDS

A.  Entries and Makeups: Members are allowed to enter up to three stereo images in each of the three competition categories for a given monthly competition. You may submit fewer than three image pairs for a given category, and may submit make-ups for the missing entries at a later competition.  No make-ups are permitted after the May competition, which is the last bi-monthly competition month of the year.  Note:  Make-ups are not eligible for the Theme of the Month judging and award, and are not eligible for other Award and HM ribbons, but the judging scores will accumulate as though the make-ups had been submitted on time in the Make-up month.

All images, regardless of Category, must be in digital format.   These digital format entries must use the uploader (see below), which becomes available starting about a week before the competition, and which remains open until the midnight before the competition.

B.  “Digital Format” refers to stereo pairs stored in digital files according to the following requirements:

1. Basic Format: Each stereo image pair to be entered must be stored in a single file, in side-by-side, parallel viewing format (left image on the left, right image on the right, with NO space between them).

2. Size (pixel dimensions) : Any reasonable file size, even a very high-resolution file, is acceptable.  Just keep in mind that nominal projection resolution is 1400 x 1050 pixels for each eye.  Higher resolution files will not improve the appearance during current judging but may be valuable for review or advanced display technology at a later date. However, the file size, when compressed, is subject to the limitations in “3.” below:

3. Final file size for entries: Each image pair file should be compressed using any high quality JPEG setting, and must be submitted as a “.jpg” file.  The total combined size for all three compressed image pairs must not exceed 20 MegaBytes (MB).

4. Optional Theme of the Month: Among your current month entries, with each image pair you wish to have judged additionally for the Theme of the Month, enter the name of the current month’s theme in all capital letters as the first word of your Title in the file name. (This does not apply to Make-ups, which are not eligible for a Theme of the Month award.) Example: The file name for your entry would normally be “View from Mt. Snarfgap,” and you want it considered for a monthly theme of “Autumn.”  Before submitting the entry you must change its file name to “AUTUMN View from Mt. Snarfgap.”

5 Entry File Name/Title: The rest of the words in the entry filename must be the title by which your image pair is identified.  Please do NOT include codes and filing ID’s that are not part of the image title.  (Also, do not use a “-” in any part of your title.) If this is not desirable for your filing system, please make a separate competition copy and rename it according to these rules.

6.  Submission by Uploader: All “Digital Format” image files for a given competition must be submitted by using the competition uploader, which is accessed by going to http://la3dclub.com/competitions/ and clicking on “Competition Uploader.”

Follow the directions on the uploader page. If you are submitting make-up images, for those images be sure to enter the date of the competition you are making up, NOT the date of the current competition, which you submit separately from the make-ups.  The uploader will be available starting about a week before the Competition meeting and will remain available until the deadline for digital submissions at midnight on the Thursday of the meeting. If you cannot submit your entries before the deadline, please hold them for the next competition, at which you may submit them as make-ups.. Do not try to submit them late at the meeting. Flash Drives, CDs or DVDs are NOT acceptable.

C.  Score Cards: Entries do not require that you prepare Score Cards — they are automatically generated by the uploader.


IV.  JUDGING PROCEDURES AND OTHER INFORMATION

There are three stereo judges for each competition. A member who is judging may not enter images in that competition and may not judge again for the same fiscal year.   Judges will receive an averaged score based on their scores for all other competitions during the fiscal year, including months where a judge submitted no entries. Alternatively, a judge may choose to submit make-ups for his or her judging month at a later competition, which would take the place of the averaging process. .

Each Category is judged separately. The two groups, “A” and “B,” within each category are judged as one complete group.  All categories are judged on the same evening.

Scoring by each judge is from five to nine points. During each competition the judges are encouraged to comment on selected images as time permits.

The top scoring images of each group of each category may be given Award and Honorable Mention ribbons. Number and distribution of ribbons to be awarded shall be determined by the Competition Director.  Make-ups are not eligible for these ribbons.

There are five bi-monthly competitions during the year for each category.  These months are normally September, November, January, March and May.

Digital Format” images are projected by computer and the club’s pair of digital projectors, all arranged for by the Equipment Director.  Our club’s digital projectors currently are projected at a resolution of 1400 x 1050 pixels for each eye, with each entry automatically sized to fill the height or width of the projected image so as to optimize the projected size without changing the original entry’s aspect ratio.

Cumulative scores will be computed for each member in each category.  Members entering more than one category will have a separate cumulative score for each category.

Images may not be entered in Club competition more than once during the same fiscal Club year. Images that have won an Award, Honorable Mention, or Theme Award in any previous Club competition in any year must not be entered again.  Similar images to such award images, whether titled the same or different, must not be entered again.

End-of-Year awards will be made to the top cumulative scores in each group of each category.  End of year awards are made only to those who enter 3 images for each of all the competitions for the year, whether by on-time entries, make-up entries, or judging average.   It is possible for the same member to earn awards for more than one category.

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