SR Foundations: Parallax Methods? - Reference Request

[strangerep]

Standard treatments (e.g., Rindler) of the foundations of Special Relativity invoke use of a "rigid rod" or "rigid scale" by an observer to construct his inertial frame -- by (somewhat fictionally) transporting the rod (and also cloning copies of a standard clock at every point in the frame). Alternatively, there's also appeals to the radar method of sending and receiving light signals to establish the frame. ISTM, use of such dubious motivations becomes an ever-increasing embarrassment in the modern era.

I vaguely recall a paper that proposed an alternate foundation based on an observer using parallax methods. I.e., inferring coordinates for a remote event in terms of two angles and
a local baseline scale (and of course the Einsteinian invariance of light velocity). I've tried various searches to re-find this work, but failed.

So I'm wondering whether such a parallax method for SR foundations rings a bell with anyone here? Does anyone know references, or perhaps an alternate name for this approach?

TIA.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@strangerep did you have any more insight on this topic?

 

[strangerep]

@strangerep did you have any more insight on this topic?

No, I never found that original paper and eventually moved on to other topics.