Why is ground glass

[Pfiltz]

LOL@Vaughn...

It's all good mate.

[AgX]

how would you focus using perfectly transparent glass?

With an optical system that brings the aerial image in the focus plane into my eyes. Good for focusing, not practical for viewing large format images.

A ground glass disperses the incoming rays, making them directly visible at the focus plan.
However the dispersion takes place around the angle of the incoming rays, and is typically not sufficient to give a bright enough image at the edges of the frame. In order to avoid to avoid bending ones head continuously from one side to the other, a field lens is used to make the outgoing rays bend towards the photographer's head. Typically these lenses are flat lenses of the Fresnell type. Also the coarseness of the ground glass is of influence: the more course the better the dispersion and the more even the illumination, but the less the resolving power and the lower the luminance.

[lxdude]

With an optical system that brings the aerial in the film plane into my eyes. Good for focusing, not practical for viewing large format images.

To add to this, some focusing screens do offer an aerial focusing spot, or a clear screen with parallax focusing. Good for very high magnification or other situations where there is extremely shallow DoF, and especially useful where any groundglass would scatter too much light.

[Marc B.]

The ground surface on the GG is often referred to as, 'the tooth.'

3-M, 'Scotch Magic Tape' has a tooth:
http://blog.baquephoto.com/wp-conten...tapefocus1.jpg
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnigh...n/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/midnigh...n/photostream/

Slightly milky, Vinyl page protectors/document sleeves have a tooth:
http://salihonbashome.blogspot.com/2...und-glass.html

[AgX]

But I don't think "tooth" is a technical term.

[Old-N-Feeble]

The question is too diffuse to answer... or is it too direct?

[horacekenneth]

I was taught that there are stupid questions and that if I didn't open my mouth right away I could've answered it for myself. Then again gg still seems a little bit like magic to me, but of course it is.

[lxdude]

The question is too diffuse to answer... or is it too direct?

Now that you've made light of it, I'll just say it's good to screen the answers. Not to say you're out of the depth of the field, but focusing on the subject, it's clear that clear is not as a rule the clearer choice- usually a matte glass is a better ground for focusing.

[Old-N-Feeble]

Oh crap... now I'm visually kunfyoozed.

[mark]

Actually I think it is ground because the grinding produces a finer image in the end than chemical etching. At least this is what was explained to me by a person who ground the glass.