New turntable rollout camera system tested by FLAAR. for six months in Guatemala, Central America. This remarkable digital system turns out to be superior to any of the several rollout systems we have tested elsewhere.

Nicholas Hellmuth took the Better Light Dicomed prototype turntable and rollout system to Central America. We tested the camera at the Museo Popol Vuh in Guatemala City and in the Copan village archaeology museum in neighboring Honduras. Earlier we had tested two other rollout systems, a 70 mm rollout made in Belgium and a computerized 70 mm rollout/panorama system made in Switzerland. All three of these were selected because they had mechanisms to improve dimensional accuracy. Home made rollout cameras set the rotational speed by guesswork, or, at best, by trial and error. This often results in rollouts that are distorted, either stretched or compressed.

Peten Maya vase of toothy bird, Museo Popol Vuh, Universidad Francisco Marroquin. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, FLAAR. Non-profit educational web sites who wish to use FLAAR. rollouts from the Museo Popol Vuh may request permission to borrow them under the condition that the Museum and FLAAR . are each credited and links to both web sites are provided (Univ. F. Marroquin until the museum has its own site). You can link to whatever FLAAR. web site you prefer to that features Museo Popol Vuh objects.

The Belgian system uses a mechanical calculator based on mathematical dimensions of the vase and distance from the focal plane. The resultant pictures are quite good. The Swiss system uses a dedicated onboard computer to attain remarkable precision. We have enlarged prints to 14 feet in length. The digital system uses its own onboard processor coupled to a Macintosh computer to produce impressive rollouts with complete dimensional accuracy.

If you need information specifically on a black-and-white laser printer that can economically print a rollout of a Maya vase at photo-realistic museum-exhibit quality (in B+W), the GCC laser can do it, indeed can render a print of a rollout of a Maya vase enlarged up to 35 inches long (at 800 or 600 dpi for that length), 13 inches tall. With this enlargement you can exhibit the rollouts as well as study every pertinent detail of the brush strokes or phonetic details of the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Contact for information on GCC: Bob Kinsella, e-mail bkinsella@gcctech.com telephone (800) 422-7777, (if you get voice mail send an e-mail).