Stereo Photography

Cover
Cover
AA30470C
A S hort Course in
Ste r e o P h o t o g r a phy
3D in the Digital Era
Dennis P a u l C u r t i n
w w w . shortcourses.com
1
S
 hort Courses Publishing Company
Short Courses Books
and
Web Site
S
hort Courses is the leading publisher of digital photography books, textbooks, and guides to specific cameras from
Canon and others. All of these books are available on-line
from the Short Courses bookstore at:
http://www.shortcourses.com/store/
All recent books are available in both black & white printed
and/or full-color eBook (PDF) versions available on CDs or
as instant downloads. The list of books we’ve published is
always expanding so be sure to visit the store to see if there is
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/pdf/PDFguide.pdf
a book on your camera, or other topics that interest you.
Click to view a PDF document
describing how to use this eBook.
Web Sites
If you find any errors in this book, would like to make suggestions for improvements, or just want to let me know what
you think I welcome your feedback.
ShortCourses.com
16 Preston Beach Road
Marblehead, Massachusetts 01945
E-mail: denny@shortcourses.com
Web site: http://www.shortcourses.com
To learn more about digital photography, visit our two Web
sites:
³³http://www.shortcourses.com is our consumer site.
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/copyright/circ01.pdf
Click to view a PDF document
on how copyright law protects
photographers and other artists.
³³http://www.photocourse.com is our instructor/student
site.
© Copyright 2011 by Dennis P. Curtin. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. Except as permitted
under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this
publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form
or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Note
on the
ShortCourses.com Web Site
This book is designed to work with many of the free on-line
books available at the author’s Web site at www.shortcourses.
com. Of special interest may be the books on using your
ISBN 1-935763-02-4
2
Short Courses Books and Web Site
digital camera digital photography workflow, image sensors
and digital desktop lighting. All of these topics apply to stere
as well as 2D photography. When you visit our site be sure to
sign up for our newsletter. It’s only used by us, and only occasionally. It’s also very easy to unsubscribe.
³³Bookstore is the home of printed copies, ebooks on CDs,
and instant downloads of digital photography books published by Short Courses. Click to visit
³³Stereo Photography: 3D in the Digital Era is a complete
guide to creating, editing and viewing digital stereo images
with an emphasis on modern twin-lens stereo cameras.
³³Curtin’s Guide to Digital Cameras and Other Photographic Equipment is a guide to choosing a digital camera
and understanding its features. Includes coverage of camera
bags, tripods, lighting equipment and much more. Click to
visit
³³Using Your Digital Camera clearly explains everything
you need to know about using your camera’s controls to capture great photos. Click to visit
³³Displaying & Sharing Your Digital Photos discusses what
digital photography is all about including printing your images as prints or books, displaying them on-screen, and moving
beyond the still image into exciting new areas. Click to visit
Use your smartphone’s camera
to read this code and jump to the
ShortCourses.com Web site.
³³Digital Photography Workflow covers everything from
getting ready to take photos to storing, organizing, managing
and editing your images. Click to visit
³³Image Sensors, Pixels and Image Sizes describes key concepts such as resolutions, aspect ratios and color depths that
have a huge impact on your photographs. Click to visit
EDUCATORS
Short Courses books have
always been popular as textbooks in digital photography
courses. If you are an instructor, you should know that
special pricing is available for
classroom use.
For details on using this and
other texts in the classroom,
please call us at 781-6318520, Boston, Massachusetts
USA time.
³³Digital Desktop Lighting is a guide to low-cost tabletop
photography equipment and the techniques used to photograph products and other small objects for eBay, Web sites,
catalogs, ads and the like. Click to visit
³³Hot Topics/About Us points you to some of the newer or
more interesting parts of the site, explains how to navigate the
site, recommends other sites, and tells you a little about who
we are and how to contact us. Click to visit
3
Contents
Contents
Cover........................................................ 1
Short Courses Books and Web Site................... 2
Web Sites ............................................. 2
Note on the ShortCourses.com Web Site.... 2
Preface...................................................... 7
3D and Vision. ............................................ 9
Terms You Will Meet................................... 11
Polarization..............................................
Types of polarization..............................
Projectors ...........................................
Screens...............................................
Glasses................................................
Polarization with TVs and monitors..........
The main drawback...............................
56
56
57
58
58
58
59
Autostereoscopic Displays.............................
Parallax barrier displays.........................
Lenticular displays.................................
Multiview displays.................................
61
63
63
64
Head Mounted 3D Displays............................ 67
Chapter 1
Viewing 3D Photos
Introduction
to
Simulated 3D—Wiggle 3D............................ 69
and
Movies. ................. 12
Simulated 3D—Pulfrich Effects...................... 71
Stereo Photography. ............... 13
Stereovision—The Basis
of
Stereo Photography.. 17
Capturing Stereo Photographs........................ 19
Viewing Methods........................................
Passive viewing.....................................
Active viewing......................................
Autostereoscopic viewing.......................
20
20
21
21
Chapter 2
Displaying & Sharing 3D Photos
and
Movies.73
Lenticular 3D Prints................................... 74
Preparing lenticular images.................... 75
Printing the images............................... 75
3D Digital Picture Frames. ........................... 77
Viewing Effects.......................................... 23
Tablets
Freeviewing Side
The 3D PC................................................ 79
Shutter glass systems............................ 79
Polarized glass systems.......................... 80
by
Side Pairs—Introduction..... 25
Freeviewing Side by Side Pairs—Parallel View....
How to................................................
Hints & tips..........................................
Practice images.....................................
Modern parallel viewers.........................
28
28
29
30
31
Freeviewing Side by Side Pairs—Cross View. .....
How to................................................
Hints & tips..........................................
Practice images.....................................
34
34
35
37
Viewing Stereo Cards.................................. 38
The original cards.................................. 38
The original viewer................................ 39
Mirror Viewers.......................................... 42
Anaglyphs.................................................
The principles.......................................
Standard anaglyph glasses.....................
Other anaglyph glasses..........................
Creating anaglyphs................................
Phantograms........................................
44
45
47
48
49
49
Dolby 3D................................................. 51
Projectors............................................ 51
Viewing glasses.................................... 51
Shutter Glasses......................................... 53
4
and
Smartphones............................... 78
3D Viewing Software on Your Computer...........
StereoPhoto Maker................................
Nvidia’s 3D Vision Photo Viewer..............
Stereoscopic Player...............................
81
81
82
83
The 3D TV................................................
The system..........................................
Your own 3D content.............................
2D content in 3D...................................
Broadcast 3D........................................
Blue-ray content...................................
DVD content.........................................
84
84
84
85
86
86
86
Viewing Fuji Real 3D Still Images and Movies on the
TV.......................................................... 87
Playback buttons................................... 87
Viewing pictures on a standard TV........... 87
Viewing pictures on a 3D HD TV.............. 88
Sharing Your Stereo Images
and Movies On-line.
89
Digital Projection.......................................
Active systems using shutter glasses.......
Passive systems using polarizing glasses..
Giving a show.......................................
90
90
90
91
Contents
Publishing Your Photos—eBooks.....................
Laying out a book.................................
Converting to PDF.................................
Reading an eBook.................................
94
96
97
98
Photo Books—Having Them Done...................100
Layout software ..................................100
Printers...............................................101
Bindings ............................................101
Things to consider................................102
Chapter 3
Capturing Stereo Photographs. ................ 104
The Technique Finder..................................105
Stereo Photography—An Introduction.............108
Twin-lens 3D Cameras................................109
Single-lens Cameras...................................112
Cha Cha method..................................112
Moving vehicle method.........................112
Sweep method.....................................113
Slide bars............................................113
Beam splitters.....................................114
Interchangeable lenses.........................115
Twin camera rigs..................................117
Smart phone and tablet apps.................117
Capturing 3D Images—Introduction................118
Composing Images. .....................................119
Camera Settings........................................124
Cameras..................................................146
Individ Shutter 3D................................146
Interval 3D Shooting............................147
Hyperstereo..............................................149
Moving the camera between shots..........149
Shooting from a moving vehicle.............150
Hypostereo...............................................154
Capturing 3D Movies..................................158
Getting ready......................................158
Shooting movies..................................158
Editing 3D movies................................159
Sharing 3D movies...............................159
3D Panoramas...........................................160
Capturing panoramas automatically........160
Capturing 3D panoramas manually.........160
Viewing 3D panoramas.........................161
Beyond the Usual.......................................162
Flatbed scanners..................................162
Sub-surface laser etching......................163
Chapter 4
Editing Your Stereo Images..................... 164
Introduction
to Editing Images......................165
Editing Workflow......................................168
Preparing your folders...........................168
Editing your files..................................168
Keeping track of files............................169
and ISO Settings...............................126
File Types................................................170
Still image file formats..........................170
Compression.......................................171
Focusing. ................................................128
Opening Images. ........................................173
Placing the Stereo Window..........................130
Effects of placing the stereo window.......131
Seeing the stereo window on a Fuji 3D camera.....................................................132
Managing the Screen Display.........................176
Using menus.......................................176
Using Toolbars.....................................176
Lenses....................................................125
Flash
Depth
of Field. .........................................135
Adjusting Exposure. ...................................138
Exposure compensation........................138
Autoexposure lock (AE Lock).................139
Understanding the Baseline. .........................140
The 1:30 rule......................................140
Changing the base...............................141
The common area................................141
Changing
the
Baseline.................................143
Saving Images...........................................178
Saving a stereo image..........................178
Saving an MPO file...............................180
Saving left and right images..................181
Saving Universal L-R-L Images...............181
Spheric Deformation.............................182
Creating MPO Files....................................183
Splitting MPO Files...................................185
Aligning Images Automatically.......................187
Adjusting The Stereo Baseline On Fuji Real 3D 5
Contents
Aligning Images Manually.............................188
Aligning images...................................188
Cropping adjusted images.....................188
Alignment tips and tricks.......................189
Uploading 3D movies
Easy Adjustment........................................190
Rotating an image automatically............191
Rotating an image manually..................193
Creating Anaglyphs
Adjusting Color and Exposure.......................194
Adjusting color and brightness automatically.
194
Adjusting color and brightness manually.. 195
Adjusting the Stereo Window. ......................197
Ways to adjust the stereo window..........197
Exploring the stereo window with SPM....198
Using Adjustment View.........................199
Editing Your Images
Adjusting
the
to
in
YouTube....................234
Photoshop. .................236
Stereo Window
with
with
Photoshop. ..238
Photoshop.................239
Creating Wiggle 3Ds Using Photoshop............241
Using the Stereocard Template......................242
Preparing the images in StereoPhoto Maker..
242
Preparing the images in Photoshop.........242
Assembling the stereocard in Photoshop.. 243
Editing Images with Nvidia’s 3D Vision Photo
Viewer....................................................244
Multi Conversion.......................................200
Cropping Images. .......................................204
Free cropping options...........................204
Custom cropping..................................205
Fixed size cropping...............................205
Resizing Images.........................................206
Resizing both images simultaneously......206
Resizing images individually...................206
Printing Stereo Cards. ...............................208
A step-by-step tutorial..........................208
Stereo Card Print Setup dialog box.........210
Creating Anaglyphs.....................................212
Creating anaglyphs...............................212
Reducing ghosting................................213
Adding a Floating Window
or Fuzzy
Side by side images throughout this book are for
parallel freeviewing unless stated otherwise.
Border......214
Displaying Your Images on the Web.................216
Getting ready......................................216
Viewing the results...............................216
Making
a
Stereo Flash Viewer.......................218
Making
an HTML File from a Displayed Image. ...220
Making
an HTML File from Image List
(Window).222
Creating Wiggle 3Ds..................................225
Creating Multiview Wiggle 3Ds.....................227
Converting 2D to 3D images.........................230
Editing with MyFinePix Studio. .....................232
Managing files.....................................232
Editing files.........................................232
Splitting files.......................................233
6
Anaglyph images in this book are viewed through
red/cyan glasses. If you are reading the black and
white printed version, you will have to open the PDF
version or visit the www.shortcourses.com site to
see these images in color.
Preface
Preface
W
e are on the cusp of a new era in stereo photography.
This isn’t the first such era. The popularity of stereo
photography has waxed and waned over the years. It was extremely popular in the 19th century when almost every home
had a stereo viewer and a stack of cards with scenes from
around the world. It was last popular in the 1950s when one
of it’s advocates, Dwight Eisenhower, was President of the
United States. As an editor wrote at the time in a book on stereo photography by Peter Gowland “Everybody, but everybody,
seems to have gone stereo crazy: the President of the United States,
hundreds of Hollywood celebrities, practically every European
traveler, even the mild-mannered, white-haired gentlemen who can
be found almost every evening in the first few rows of Radio City’s
Music Hall shooting the shapely Rockettes. Look in any direction on
a clear day and you’re bound to see a handful of stereo fans clicking
away.”
Photo courtesy of Rob Oechsle
(www.t-enami.org), Okinawa
Soba on Flickr.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author would like to thank
Susan Pinsky & David Starkman of Reel 3-D Enterprises
and Bob Aldridge of The Stereoscopic Society (www.stereoscopy.net) for all of the time
they took answering questions and making suggestions.
Despite their best efforts, any
problems that remain are entirely the fault of the author.
HELP WANTED
If you have any corrections
or improvements to suggest,
they would be most welcome.
Please write me at denny@
shortcourses.com.
Eventually that era passed, along with its signature tail fins
and sock hops, and stereo photography has been in the photographic background for decades. It was only with the 2009
introduction of the Fuji W1 stereo camera that stereo photography moved seriously into the digital era. This camera and
its successors have reinvigorated and greatly simplified what
had previously been a laborious process from beginning to
end.
This new era is quite different from past eras. The mass market in consumer electronics, of which the stereo camera is a
part, is rushing headlong toward a 3D future. All of the necessary elements are being 3D enabled—be they cameras, TV
sets, projectors, Blu-ray players, computer monitors or video
cameras. Whether this is a permanent change or a passing
fancy remains to be seen. Whatever the outcome, the 3D camera is no longer an isolated island, but is now mainstreamed
into consumer electronics.
With so much happening all at once it’s easy to get confused.
The goal of this book is to sort things out for you so you can
understand not just the digital stereo camera but the rest of
the digital world in which it is embedded. If we talk about
stereo film photography at all it’s only for historical perspective. We also concentrate on the newer twin-lens digital stereo
cameras, leaving esoteric two-camera combinations to others. However, much of what you learn here can be used with
7
P
 reface
single-lens cameras—which are as good as twin-lens cameras
when taking stereo close-ups of subjects such as flowers or
distant scenes such as landscapes.
When capturing stereo images is discussed in this book it’s
primarily the stereo aspects of photography although we do
discuss many of the basic techniques common to all forms of
photography such as focus, exposure and the like. We have
also included a table of techniques you might want to use
when capturing stereo photos and point you to where the
needed techniques are discussed in the book “Using Your
Digital Camera” available in the ShortCourses.com bookstore
at http://www.shortcourses.com/store/using5.html.
As you begin your journey in stereo photography, you are
following in the footsteps of some our most esteemed photographers. Many of these, especially those practicing in the
19th century, photographed in stereo extensively because
there was an insatiable market for stereo cards showing wonders of the world in 3D. Early stereo photographers include
http://www.shortcourses.com/store/using5.html
the inventors of photography Henry Fox Talbot and Louis
Daguerre and other well-known photographers including
George N. Barnard, Felix Beato, H.H. Bennett, Charles BierClick to learn more about the
stadt, Matthew B. Brady, Roger Fenton, F. Jay Haynes, Jack
book “Using Your Digital Camera.”
L. Hillers, Thormas Houseworth, William Henry Jackson,
Eadweard J. Muybridge, Timothy H. O’Sullivan, A. J. RusA DIMENSION IS A TERRIBLE
sell, Charles R. Savage and Carleton E. Watkins. Search the
THING TO WASTE
Web for any of these names to see examples of their work.
Robert Ebert, one-half of a
Although we know the work of many of these photographers,
once influential movie reviewthose who worked as employees of the large stereo photograing team, calls 3D in movies
phy publishers such as E & HT Anthony and Keystone were
“..a waste of a perfectly good
dimension.”
usually not credited so remain anonymous. Also the negatives captured by well known photographers were traded and
sold so it’s sometimes hard to know who took which photos.
Using Your Digital Camera is
a popular and well-respected
book on digital photography.
It’s available in both a print and
downloadable eBook edition.
The author.
8
As you read this book you will find it different from many of
the stereo photography books published over the years. It is
an introductory book, designed to help experienced photographers explore the field of stereo photography without getting
bogged down in the scientific theories and mathematics that
so many books dwell on. What you learn here should help
make you a successful stereo photographer, and if you want
to burrow deeper, there are many other fine books.
3D and Vision
3D
and
Vision
STEREO-BLIND ARTISTS
Margaret S. Livingstone
and her colleague, Bevil R.
Conway, at Harvard Medical
School have published a study
in The New England Journal of
Medicine, that suggest Rembrandt may have been stereo
blind since he appears walleyed (divergent strabismus)
in his self-portraits. If it’s true
and his eyes didn’t align correctly, this may have allowed
him to better see the world
in two dimensions and then
reproduce the scene that way
on a two-dimensional canvas.
The two researchers expanded their study using photos
of more contemporary artists
and suspect that others may
also have been stereo blind
including de Kooning, Johns,
Stella, Picasso, Calder, Chagall, Hopper and Homer.
A
lthough no one knows exactly how many, some people
who watch 3D images on television, at the movies or
while gaming suffer symptoms such as blurred vision, headaches, nausea and dizziness. This is especially true in movies
that use quick cuts between scenes with different depths, forcing our eyes to make constant adjustments to focus on images
that are simultaneously near and far away—something good
directors try to avoid.
A small number of people can’t see the 3D effects at all. The
Optometrists Network (www.vision3d.com) explains that
several visual disabilities make seeing in 3D difficult or impossible. These include loss of an eye, amblyopia (lazy eye),
and strabismus (eye turns, crossed eyes or wandering eyes).
In most cases two-eyed vision can be improved with supervised visual therapy.
Because 3D manufacturers are aware of these potential problems, they often put warnings on their products. For example,
Fuji puts this somewhat alarming warning in their owners
manual for the W1 and something very similar in the manual
for the W3:
3D display is not recommended for young children (up to the age of
about six) whose visual system is still maturing and for individuals
with notable differences in vision between their two eyes, who may
find it difficult or impossible to observe the 3D effect. Should you
experience fatigue or discomfort while viewing 3D images, cease
use immediately. A ten-minute break is recommended about once
every half hour. Switch to 2D immediately if 3D images still appear
double after you have adjusted parallax. Individuals with a history
of photosensitive epilepsy or heart disease or who are unwell or suffering from fatigue, insomnia, or the affects of alcohol should refrain
from viewing 3D images. Viewing 3D images while in motion may
cause fatigue or discomfort.
Susan R. Barry’s account of
recovering her stereo vision after
fifty years without it.
If you have trouble seeing in 3D you may want to meet Susan R. Barry who was cross-eyed and stereo blind since early
infancy. After half a century of perceiving her surroundings
as flat and compressed, Barry found an optometrist who prescribed a little-known program of vision therapy. After intensive training, Barry was ultimately able to accomplish what
she and other scientists had once considered impossible—the
return of her 3D vision. As a neuroscientist, she understood
just how extraordinary this transformation was, not only
9
3D  and Vision
for herself but for the scientific understanding of the human
brain. Scientists have long believed that the brain is malleable
only during a “critical period” in early childhood. According
to this theory, Barry’s brain had organized itself when she
was a baby to avoid double vision—and there was no way to
rewire it as an adult. She tells her story of how she overcame
this disability in her book Fixing My Gaze.
Chico: Hey, boss, what’s-amater
you no longer make-a eye contact?
Grocho: None of your strabismus
Oliver Sacks is a member of the
New York Stereoscopic Society
and perhaps best known for his
book “The Man Who Mistook
His Wife for a Hat.” He has now
written a wonderful book on
vision including a chapter on
stereo vision.
President Ulysses Grant at his cottage by the sea (top) showing
Grant seated on porch with his wife, Julia, and son, Jesse. View
of the entire cottage (bottom).
10
Freeviewing Side by Side Pairs—Introduction
Freeviewing Side
by
S i d e P a i r s —I n t r o d u c t i o n
O
Smart phones and tablet
computers with 2D displays can
all display side-by-side image
pairs for free viewing.
IT’S GREAT
TO BE POPULAR
Side by side stereo pairs can
be printed in books, projected
with a 2D digital projector, and
displayed on any TV, monitor or mobile device. Viewing
side-by-side pairs is so popular
because it requires no special processing, hardware or
software although viewers can
sometimes make it easier.
AND IT’S FREE TO BOOT
Throughout this book you will
find references to StereoPhoto
Maker—often called just SPM.
This free stereo program is
widely used by stereographers
to view and edit their images.
nce you have captured a pair of images, you may be able
to see them in 3D on the camera’s monitor. However you
can make them larger, see more detail, and share them with
others by displaying them side by side on the computer’s
monitor or as printouts. To view these versions in 3D many
people use glasses or other viewing devices, but with practice
you may be able to view them in 3D unaided—called freeviewing or free-fusion. When freeviewing stereo pairs you display
the two images side by side. To then fuse them into a single
3D image you have to learn to point each eye at only one of
the images. There are two ways to do this—parallel and cross
freeviewing.
With a little practice most people can learn both techniques
although they may find one method easier to use. It is helpful
to know how to do both because each has advantages. One
reason to learn these techniques is because they let you view
your images in their original brightness, color and resolution,
something many other viewing methods don’t do as well.
You can also see the 3D effects in black and white photos,
since color isn’t used to direct the two images to the correct
eyes. One of the best things is that you will never be at a loss
when you see a stereo pair but don’t have a viewing device.
One drawback is that you don’t get any magnification of the
images, something lenses in viewing devices often provide.
A layout format called L-R-L—or just LRL—allows viewers the
option of parallel or cross freeviewing. The LR pair are parallel
viewed and the RL pair are cross viewed. To lay out photos
in this way you can use StereoPhoto Maker or just copy the
left image and move it to the far right end so you have three
images—left, right, and a duplicate left.
25
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
When freeviewing stereo pairs, here are some things you can
do to make the experience more successful and enjoyable:
Many people have been
introduced to freeviewing
techniques through the popular
Magic Eye books (www.magiceye.
com) first published in the
1990s. These books, which have
sold over 20 million copies,
feature computer generated
autostereograms that hide a 3D
image in a 2D image. To see the
3D image you have to be able to
freeview it.
³³Pick a brightly lit setting free of glare and shadows. If using
a monitor, display stereo pairs at any size for cross viewing,
but for parallel viewing make them 7 inches wide or even less.
They will parallel freeview best when the center-to-center distance between the images is roughly the same as the distance
between your eyes—on average, about 2.5 inches (6.5 cm)—or
smaller.
When viewing stereo images on the monitor, StereoPhoto Maker
displays the pair side by side and you can adjust their sizes.
Adobe Acrobat offers a wide
range of zoom percentages to
choose from.
26
Images in the eBook edition of this book can be viewed at almost
Freeviewing Side by Side Pairs—Introduction
any size using Acrobat Reader’s settings.
³³Position yourself and the images so they are parallel to
your face, not at an angle. If you are viewing them on a monitor you may have to adjust its tilt.
³³Try increasing and decreasing your distance from the images.
³³If you wear glasses, try viewing both with and without
them. Reading glasses in particular help some people fuse
images more easily and when fused let you see details more
clearly.
The 3D Camera app by Juicy
Bits creates side-by-side pairs or
anaglyphs for viewing on your
iPhone or iPad. Courtesy of www.
juicybitssoftware.com
³³Relax while viewing and take breaks if you experience any
discomfort. Not everyone can successfully freeview stereo
pairs, but for those who can, it gets easier with practice and
eventually you may be able to fuse them almost instantly.
Once images fuse, it’s easy to keep them that way as your
eyes wander over the scene to examine details, and you’ll find
it easier to fuse the next pair.
³³Don’t get discouraged because as you’ll soon see there are
many other ways to view stereo images.
When viewing full page stereo views in this eBook check that
the ruler above is 7” long on your screen for best results. If not,
click Acrobat Reader’s zoom percentage drop-down arrow to
set it as close as possible or type in a percentage figure in the
text box next to the drop-down arrow. You can also make fine
adjustments by holding down Ctrl while you press + and – on
the keyboard.
27
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
Freeviewing Side
by
S i d e P a i r s —P a r a l l e l V i e w
W
hen parallel freeviewing stereo pairs, the image for the
left eye is on the left and the image for the right eye is
on the right. The centers of the two images should be about
2.5 inches (6.5 cm) apart to roughly match the separation of
our eyes. This limits the width of each image in the stereo pair
to about 2.5 inches (6.5 cm) but this makes them easier to fuse.
You can view them with your eyes aimed almost parallel or
even converged a little. The smaller size of these images also
makes it possible for you to freeview them on mobile devices
such as smart phones and tablets. To parallel freeview larger
images, with their centers farther apart than your eyes, you
have to diverge your eyes, something most people find uncomfortable if they can do it at all. One thing you can do to
view larger images is to increase your viewing distance so
your eyes have to diverge less. If that fails, reverse the images
and cross view them as described in the next section.
Image pairs for parallel viewing have the image for the left eye
on the left and the image for the right eye on the right.
How
to
To parallel freeview images, stare at the image pair so your
eyes’ lines of sight are roughly parallel. Defocus your eyes as
if you are staring through the images into the far distance—
28
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
A n a g l yp h s
A
naglyphs are probably the most widely used and recognizable stereo images. Their red and blue or cyan images, superimposed and slightly offset from one another are
instantly recognizable to almost everyone because of their
extensive use in comic books, 3D movies, and Mars Rover
images (marsrover.nasa.gov/gallery/3d). Anaglyph stills
and movies are also common on the Internet because you can
save them in whatever file format a photo sharing or social
networking site requires. Once uploaded all visitors need
to view them is an inexpensive pair of red/cyan anaglyph
One of the first 3D movies was
glasses and a standard 2D TV or monitor. If you don’t have
the anaglyph L’arrivée du train
anaglyph glasses you can buy them from a number of on-line
by the Lumière brothers in
sources. You may also find them at movie rental stores and
1903. Click button below to view
the movie. Courtesy of www.
sometimes where comic books are sold although the colors
stereoscopy.com/faq/movies.html
won’t always be red and cyan. If you wear reading glasses,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ncULvCVDa8&feature=player_detailpage
wearing them along with anaglyph glasses noticeably sharpens the image.
Once you become aware of anaglyphs, they seem to be everywhere. For example, Google Maps now displays street views
in anaglyph 3D by right-clicking many street view images
and selecting 3D mode on or 3D mode off. Also, the US National
Park Service has anaglyphs of many of their parks ready for
viewing at 3dparks.wr.usgs.gov.
A full color anaglyph of Marblehead’s harbor and Abbot Hall
retains much of its color when viewed with red/cyan glasses.
44
Anaglyphs
ANAGLYPH MOVIES
Commercial 3D movies are
often released in the anaglyph
format because they can be
viewed on any standard 2D
TV using a DVD player instead
of Blu-ray. However, not all of
the anaglyph movies use the
same colors. For example:
• Shrek 3D, Spy kids 3D, Sea
Monster: A Prehistoric Adventure 3D, Scar 3D, Friday
the 13th, The Adventures of
Sharkboy and Lavagirl and
Polar Express 3D, Bugs, Santa
vs. the Snowman, Hannah
Montana & Miley, Freddy’s
Dead and The Final Nightmare
all use Red/Cyan glasses.
• Monsters vs Aliens, My
Bloody Valentine 3D, Journey To The Center Of The
Earth 3D and Caroline all use
Green/Magenta glasses.
You can see that the cyan image to be viewed by the left eye is
offset to the left of the red image due to parallax at the time the
pictures were taken.
Anaglyphs are popular but they have cons as well as pros:
PROS
³³Anaglyphs can be any size from very small to very large.
Also, since the two images are superimposed, a given size
takes up half the space of side-by-side images.
³³You can view anaglyphs in books, as prints, projected
with a 2D digital projector, and displayed on standard 2D TV
screens or computer monitors. Anaglyph movies can also be
played using any DVD player, or even a VHS tape player.
³³The images can be viewed without special hardware and
software other than the glasses.
³³Anaglyph glasses are very inexpensive and can be bound
into publications such as comic books and magazines.
CONS
MAKING GLASSES
If you can’t find a pair of anaglyph glasses you can make
some out of red and cyan (or
blue) acetate from a craft or
art supply store. You can even
use clear acetate and color
it with broad tipped red and
cyan (or blue) marker pens.
For more detailed instructions
search the Web for “DIY anaglyph glasses.”
TIPS
• The colors in an anaglyph
image will appear almost
natural if the image contains
no reds.
• Anaglyph ghosts are reduced by using a floating window as described in Chapter
4.
³³Anaglyph images tend to look dark, muted and desaturated, especially reds, because the colored lenses used to view
the images remove and alter the light passing through them.
To offset this to some extent you can increase the brightness of
the light under which you view prints or turn up the brightness on the computer monitor or TV on which they are displayed.
³³They look odd in 2D when not wearing anaglyph glasses.
³³They can’t be reproduced in black and white because colors
are needed to direct each image in the stereo pair to the correct eye.
³³Best results are achieved when images are prepared for a
specific display and specific glasses. This is a problem since
people then view them on-line through widely varying cheap
glasses on displays with poorly adjusted colors.
The
p r i nc i p l e s
The principle of 3D anaglyphs was first proposed in 1853 by
Wilhelm Rollmann and then adapted to practical use by Ducos du Hauron in 1891. Anaglyphs traditionally used a super45
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
imposed pair of colored images, usually cyan on the left and
red on the right, with one image offset slightly from the other
due to parallax at the time they were taken. When viewed
through a pair of glasses with lenses of the same colors as the
images but reversed so red is on the left and cyan on the right,
the image appears in 3D. The principle behind this is that a
color in a picture disappears when viewed through a filter of
the same color, and appears black when viewed through a
filter of a complementary color.
YouTube offers a number of
anaglyph choices—all using
complementary colors on opposite
sides of the color wheel. Glasses
for these various color parings,
such as green/magenta, are
available on-line.
Complementary colors such as red–cyan and magenta–green
are opposite each other on this simplified color star. Since colors
in the images and glasses are not true, colors can shift slightly.
Courtesy of DanPMK on WikiPedia.
To get a better idea of how your
anaglyph glasses affect colors,
search the Web for a color
chart, perhaps one by McBeth
or Pantone. Look through your
glasses at the chart, alternately
closing one eye and then the
other to see what colors are
blocked or displayed through the
red and cyan filters.
46
Based on the concept of complementary colors here is what
happens when you view a red/cyan anaglyph through red/
cyan glasses. (If you have a pair of anaglyph glasses use them
to view the color star above as you follow the discussion.)
³³The red filter over the left eye displays the red parts of the
image as white and the cyan parts as black. Whites and blacks
are seen as is.
³³The cyan filter over the right eye displays the cyan parts of
the image as white and the red parts as black. Again, whites
and blacks are seen as is.
Anaglyphs
As a result of this filtering of colors only the left eye sees the
cyan image and only the right side sees the red one. Other
colors in the scene are also affected, though not as much so
you can see color anaglyphs.
Here you see the original wheel on the left and next to it what
the wheel looks like when viewed through red and cyan filters.
Each color filter passes its complementary color.
3D IN THE ‘50S
Although red/blue glasses are
associated in many people’s
mind with 3D movies from the
1950s, most of those feature
films were polarized. Anaglyphs were most often used
in short segments in otherwise 2D movies.
Anaglyph glasses with red and
cyan lenses.
READING GLASSES AND 3D
Anaglyph, or any other kind
of stereo glasses, should fit
over reading glasses if you
use them.
S t a nd a r d
a n a g l y p h g l a ss e s
Many anaglyph glasses were originally red and blue which
was fine for viewing red and blue 3D line drawings such as
those found in comic books. However, when viewing full-color photographs they have their shortcomings. For this reason
other color combinations are now used—the most popular
being red and cyan because cyan improves some colors, especially lighter skin tones, green foliage and blue skies. This
is because the cyan filter lets through a range of colors from
blue to green. The quality of the color filters in the glasses you
use make a difference. Reds are usually consistent from one
pair to another but cyan varies widely both in hue and saturation. There are those who think that, all else being equal,
glasses with a lighter cyan work best because the lighter cyan
lets you see more colors in a full-color image.
In addition to lens colors, another affect on image viewing is
the optical quality of the lenses which range from cheap paper versions to those with plastic frames and molded acrylic
lenses. Some of these later glasses are available with a diopter
power to correct the focus shift in the image passing through
the red filter. Some people, especially the nearsighted, find
this correction uncomfortable because it causes the left and
right lenses to have different magnifications. However, for
others, having both eyes focus on the same point increases
image sharpness and improves contrast.
47
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
Search the Web for “3D film fest”
to find 3D events in which you
might be interested. Courtesy of
the Fox Theater, Toronto, Canada
at www.foxtheatre.ca.
Anaglyph glasses made from cardboard and plastic lenses are
the least expensive way to view anaglyph images. Courtesy of
HDLogix.
Other
The Minuro 3D Webcam sends
800 x 600 anaglyphs that viewers
can see in 3D with red/cyan
glasses. Courtesy of Minoru at
www.minoru3d.com.
a n a g l y p h g l a ss e s
To improve viewing full-color anaglyph photos and movies
the filters used in your lenses make a difference in the quality of colors you perceive and ghosting—when one eye sees
the image meant for the other. In addition to red and cyan
lenses, there are also the following glasses in play and you
can learn more about them on the Internet. Some of these are
patent protected proprietary systems used mainly for movies
or print media when the glasses are distributed along with
the media to be viewed. The reason there are so many new
developments in this area is because a large percentage of the
potential audience wants to be able to display 3D stills and
movies on their existing home 2D equipment.
³³Anachrome™ glasses (www.anachrome.com) use a more
transparent cyan filter to retain more of the colors, letting a
little red through to improve skin tones. Also, when taking
pictures to be viewed with these glasses, the offset or parallax
between the two images—called the baseline—can be reduced
by moving the camera lenses closer together. Images captured
this way have less disparity and look almost normal when
viewed without glasses. (Baselines are discussed in Chapter
3.) The closely related Mirachrome glasses have more diopter
power, and are for close viewing on small screens. This system works best when photographs are taken and processed
specifically for it.
48
Anaglyphs
³³Triscopic glasses (www.trioscopics.com) have a green left
lens and magenta right.
³³TriOrviz glasses (www.trioviz.com) have a magenta left
lens and green right.
³³ColorCode 3-D (www.colorcode3d.com) have an amber
left lens and dark blue right. This color system was developed
for use with the NTSC television standard that poorly displayed the traditional red channel.
If you wear reading glasses,
clip on anaglyph filters are very
convenient.
Creating
anaglyphs
Until the digital era, colored filters were used over the camera
lenses and the same colors were used in the viewing glasses.
Today the camera filters have been replaced by software so
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaglyph_image
the original images in the stereo pair are not affected at the
time they are captured and can be used just like any other
full-color 2D photos. There are many software programs
available that create anaglyphs from stereo pairs including
Click for more detailed
information on anaglyphs on
StereoPhoto Maker and Photoshop, both of which are disWikipedia.
cussed in Chapter 4. As you’ll see in that chapter the following types of anaglyphs can be made from a stereo pair with
the click of a mouse in StereoPhoto Maker:
Grey Anaglyphs
Color Anaglyphs
Red/Cyan
Color (Red/Cyan)
Red/Green
Half Color (Red/Cyan)
Red/Blue
Dubois Anaglyph
Yellow/Blue
Ghost/reduced Anaglyph
Color (Yellow/Blue)
Half Color (Yellow/Blue)
Phantograms
Anaglyph glasses red/blue, red/
cyan, and red/green. Glasses
courtesy of www.3dglassesonline.
com
Phantograms, which are technically called stereo anamorphic
images, and which StereoPhoto Maker calls “popup anaglyphs,” are anaglyphs taken, often of simple subjects, from
the same angle they will be viewed from. For example, after
photographing a subject 3 feet away with the camera at a 45°
angle the stereo pair are printed, laid on a flat surface and
viewed from 3 feet away at a 45° angle using anaglyph glasses. The effect is very realistic. If you are viewing images on
a laptop, or using a monitor with a tilt capability, tilt the top
away from you, ideally at a 45° angle.
49
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
Viewing phantograms on a vertical computer screen lets you
http://www.shughes.org/phantograms/Download_images.htm
see the 3D effects but doesn’t give you the dramatically realistic effect. Since most phantograms are shot with the camera
pointed down and at an angle, that’s how they should be
Click here to visit Steve Hughes
site on making phantograms, with
viewed. Creating these images is beyond the scope of this
many downloadable examples.
book but the process, which is admittedly technical, is described in detail in StereoPhoto Maker’s Help. Just search for
“Popup Anaglyphs”.)
Here the camera was pointed down at a 45° angle to photograph
a model truck and bottle. If you printed this image out, laid it
flat on a table and looked down at it at the same 45° angle it
would be very life-like. Courtesy of Gilbert Detillieux at Gilbert.
Detillieux.info/3d/.
50
Autostereoscopic Displays
A u t o s t e r e o sc o p i c D i sp l a ys
T
One place to look for
autostereoscopic displays is on
smartphones, tablets and mobile
game machines. It’s much easier
to design affordable screens for
small handheld devices with a
single point of view. The first
3D smartphone, the LG Optimus
3D, has a dual-lens camera that
captures stills and movies.
PANORAMAGRAMS
Autostereoscopic displays slice
images into thin strips and
then interleave them. A parallax panoramagram is interleaved images from multiple
sources. A parallax panoramagram from 2 sources is a
parallax stereogram.
he holy grail of 3D is a display that lets you see 3D effects
without glasses, filters or other viewing devices. These
autostereoscopic displays—sometimes called glassless displays—
are likely to catch on first with single-viewer handheld devices and computer monitors where it’s easy for you to adjust
the viewing distance and angle so you are in the best place
to see the 3D effects—called the sweet spot. Things get more
complicated and more expensive when designing a screen for
a group of people, all viewing it from different angles. At the
moment autostereoscopic displays are used as monitors on
twin-lens stereo cameras and camcorders so you can compose
and review your images in 3D. They are also found in larger
digital picture frames used to display 3D images and movies. It won’t be long before they become more widely used on
other devices including computer monitors and TV screens.
Although they are already available on such devices, their
high cost limits them to commercial and scientific applications.
The Fuji W1 stereo camera was one of the first handheld devices
with an autostereoscopic LCD monitor.
To understand how these displays work, it helps to begin by
understanding that they can have hundreds of thousands or
even millions of pixels. Each can be set to any one of millions
of colors by mixing various brightnesses of just three colored
subpixels—red, green and blue—usually arranged on the
screen in repetitive vertical stripes.
61
Chapter 1 Viewing 3D Photos and Movies
YOU MAY NOT WANT TO
WAIT
A Samsung VP stated “We believe there is a lot of work to
do to get the quality right and
ready for consumers homes.
We have no immediate plans
for glasses-free 3D. What we
are concentrating on as the
Samsung brand is a fully immersive high quality picture
experience with goggles.”
This enlargement of the monitor on the back of the Fuji shows
the red green and blue subpixels. Subpixels often, but not
always, run vertically on the screen. Each triplet forms one pixel.
For 3D some subpixels are cast to one eye while others are cast
to the other eye.
By placing a thin optical layer (also called a lens plate or optical filter) over the screen, stripes of subpixels from different
images can be "cast", or projected, towards each eye. There
are two common types of optical layers—parallax barriers that
block the light in certain directions and lenticular sheets that
refract the light.
Some Sharp smart phones have
parallax barrier displays.
62
For images to be displayed in 3D on these displays, each
stereo pair must first be interleaved (also called interzigging).
In this process each image is digitally sliced vertically into
strips one pixel or one subpixel wide. The strips from both
images are then interleaved like a perfectly shuffled deck of
cards so they alternate across the display. The odd numbered
strips are all from the left photo in a stereo pair and cast to
the left eye. Even numbered stripes are from the right photo
and cast to the right eye. Since only half of the stripes from
each image can be used if the original image width is to be
retained, the other half are discarded so horizontal resolution drops by half, but vertical resolution is unchanged.
Viewing Fuji Real 3D Still Images and Movies on the TV
Viewing Fuji Real 3D Still Images
and
Movies
on the
TV
F
uji Real 3D still images and movies can be played back on
the camera in 3D with stereo sound. However, you can
also connect these cameras to a regular or 3D TV for playback
on the larger screen. Here we discuss the Fuji W3 in detail.
The W1 and other camera models from other camera companies work in similar ways.
Playback
b u t t o ns
Buttons on the back of the camera are used to view still images and movies on the camera’s monitor or on a connected TV.
³³3D button switches between 3D and 2D recording and the
selected mode is displayed on the monitor
³³Selector button has points you press during playback:
• Down starts, pauses and resumes playback.
Buttons on the back of the camera
used to view movies include (from
upper left to lower right):
• Playback button
• Movie button
• Selector button with MENU/OK
in the center
• Disp/Back button
• 3D button
FUJI SETTINGS
• When you connect a Fuji
3D camera to a 3D TV with
an HDMI cable you use HDMI
OUTPUT on the camera’s setup
menu to set the display format
to 3D, 2D, or SIDE-BY-SIDE.
• On a 3D display, playback
zoom, parallax adjustment,
and the RESIZE and CROP
options in the playback menu
are not available and some
3D pictures are displayed in
2D including any taken using
Advanced 3D, still images and
movies created using MyFinePix Studio, cropped or resized images, and still images
and movies for which parallax
has been adjusted using the
PARALLAX CONTROL setting on
the playback menu.
• Up ends playback or, if playback isn't in progress, deletes
the current movie.
• Right and Left advance or rewind the movie during playback.
³³MENU/OK pauses playback and displays volume controls.
Up or down adjusts the volume and MENU/OK resumes
playback.
Viewing
p i c t u r e s o n a s t a nd a r d
TV
You can view your images and movies on a standard TV set
but they will be displayed in 2D. To do so:
1. Turn off the camera.
2. Using an optional A/V cable connect the yellow plug to the
TVs video-in jack, the white plug to the audio-in jack and the
A/V cable connector to the camera.
3. Turn on the TV and press the Playback button for a second
to turn on the camera. The camera monitor turns off and pictures are played back on the TV. To adjust playback volume
use the television volume controls.
87
Chapter 2 Displaying & Sharing 3D Photos and Movies
PLAYBACK TIPS
• Do not cover the speaker
during playback.
• Vertical or horizontal streaks
may appear in movies containing very bright subjects.
This is normal and does not
indicate a malfunction.
• HD movies recorded with
the W3 can’t be viewed on
FINEPIX HDP-L1, card readers, or FINEPIX REAL 3D V1
photo frames.
• Movies recorded with the
W3 can’t be viewed on W1
cameras. The W3 can display
movies recorded with the W1,
but can’t feed such movies to
HDMI devices.
4. To control the playback use the Selector button as described
in the Playback buttons section above.
Viewing
pictures on a
3D HD TV
You can display images directly from the camera to an HD
TV (in 2D) or a 3D HD TV (in 3D) as follows.
1. Turn off the camera.
2. Use an optional high-speed HDMI cable to connect the
TV and camera. The smaller HDMI connector plugs into the
camera and the larger one into the TV. Unplug the USB cable
because both can’t be connected at the same time.
3. Select the display format for HDMI output from 3D, 2D,
and SIDE-BY-SIDE using the HDMI OUTPUT option in the
setup menu.
4. To control the playback use the Selector button as described
in the Playback buttons section above.
³³On 3D TVs, playback zoom, parallax adjustment, and the
RESIZE and CROP options in the playback menu are not
available.
³³On 3D TVs, the following types of 3D picture will be displayed in 2D:
• Pictures taken using Advanced 3D.
• 3D still images and movies created using MyFinePix Studio.
• Cropped or resized images.
• Still images and movies for which parallax has been
adjusted using the PARALLAX CONTROL option in the
playback menu. (For this to work, Power Management on the
setup menu must be set to Quick AF.)
88
Sharing Your Stereo Images and Movies On-line
Sharing Your Stereo Images
and
Movies On-line
W
hen you are ready to start sharing your stereo photos
with others there are a number of photo sharing Web
sites to consider. Since so much is happening in this area, periodically search the Web for “3D photo sharing” to find new
sites.
YouTube viewing choices. If you
click the top choice it will display
a sscreen where you can select
your viewing method.
³³YouTube (youtube.com ) is the place to display your 3D
movies. There are many ways to post them, some much more
complicated than others. The easiest way is to use the MyFinePix Studio program that comes free with a Fuji 3D camera. How to do this is discussed in the Uploading 3D Movies to
YouTube section in Chapter 4.
³³Start 3D (start3d.com) let’s you post still images and view
them as Piku-Piku (wiggle 3D); red/cyan and yellow/blue
anaglyphs; side by side parallel and cross view.
³³3dPho.to let’s you upload your 3D images or video in any
format: MPO, Loreo half-frame, or separate left-right images.
Visitors can then view them in their preferred way, from
cross-eyed to autostereo.
³³Phereo (phereo.com) let’s you view images in 3D Vision,
anaglyph, cross view, parallel view, V-inter, H-intr, ch-inter,
and wiggle 3D.
³³Vimeo’s 3D Channel (www.vimeo.com/stereoscopy) has
a Stereo 3D Channel to showcase independent 3D films and
to connect 3D filmmakers. Whether you’re a filmmaker or just
a 3D fan, they encourage you to comment and critique the
films.
³³Nvidia 3D Vision Live (www.3dvisionlive.com) lets you
register and then click Upload to display a drop-down menu
listing stereo formats you can upload.
Nvidia 3D Vision Live lets you
upload stereo images in the
formats shown above.
³³To post stereo images on your own Web site you can use
StereoPhoto Maker. This program has both a StereoPhotoViewer Applet and a Stereo Flash Viewer. Both of these are
discussed in Chapter 4. You can also search for and look into
viewers such as Nuvision 3D Plug-in, DepthCharge Plug-in,
and the Stereoscopic Java Applet, by Andreas Petersik.
89
Chapter 2 Displaying & Sharing 3D Photos and Movies
Digital Projection
O
Digital projectors like this small
pico projector from Viewsonic are
increasingly 3D ready so you can
display games, movies and stills—
usually with shutter glasses.
ne of the ironies in digital photography is that although
it makes it easier and less expensive to display images
to millions of people one on one, it makes it more expensive
to show them to small groups gathered around a TV set, or
to room-sized groups. The days of the old lantern slide show
are long gone and 35mm slide shows have recently followed
them off stage. Slide shows are now given with a digital projector (sometimes called a multimedia projector) and screen.
If you’ve ever slept through a PowerPoint presentation, that
was the technology being used. Your show can be stored on
any of the computer’s storage devices and played from there,
or fed to the projector from a TV or DVD/Blu-ray player. You
can show anaglyphs with any screen and 2D projector, but for
professional results you need a more elaborate system based
around polarized glasses or, less frequently—shutter glasses.
Most 3D projectors employ Texas Instruments’ Digital Light
Processing (DLP) technology because of the technology’s
compatibility with the 3D video reproduction process.
Active
DepthQ modulators (Z-screens)
in two sizes. Courtesy of www.
depthq.com.
s y s t e m s u s i n g s h u t t e r g l a ss e s
One of the most popular 3D setups uses a single DLP projector to alternately project left and right eye images that are
viewed through relatively expensive shutter glasses. Since
only one eye sees an image at any given time, and the glasses
cut the light farther only 16% of the original projector light
reaches the eye.
P a ss i v e
s y s t e m s u s i n g p o l a r i z i n g g l a ss e s
There are a number of possible setups using polarizing filters
over the projection lenses and in the viewer’s glasses.
WHAT ARE THE PERCENTAGES?
The percentages in this section
referring to how much light
reaches the viewers eyes are
from Barco, leading suppliers
of stereo projection systems
(www.barco.com).
90
³³Two DLP projectors can be used, each with a filter oriented
at 90° to the other. The polarized images are viewed through
inexpensive passive polarized glasses. The polarizing filters
and glasses reduce the light so only 38% of the original projector light reaches the eye.
³³Two LCD projectors use LCD panels to polarize the
light passing through. The panels and polarizing glasses let
through 59% of the original projector light—the most of any
system.
³³A Single projector with a Z-screen projects images sequen-
Twin-lens 3D Cameras
Twin-lens 3D Cameras
The first widely distributed digital twin-lens 3D camera was
the W1 from Fuji—soon followed by a number of other twinlens models. These cameras make 3D photography as easy as
any other kind—just point and shoot. They all use two lenses
separated by the average distance between your eyes (more
or less depending on the size of the devices) to capture a pair
of images. Since both images are taken instantaneously you
can capture action shots. Being point and shoots, these cameras can automatically set the exposure (aperture and shutter
speed), focus, white balance, and shutter release for each lens.
It’s as if two cameras have been blended into a single camera
body. Since they capture images instantaneously, they can
also capture movies.
The Fuji W3 has two lenses and two image sensors to capture 10
megapixel left and right views of a subject. The autostereoscopic
monitor displays the images in 3D.
The Rollei Powerflex 3D camera
captures 5 megapixel images.
The Aiptex i2 is primarily a 3D camcorder, capturing 720p video
(1280 x 720 pixels) in 3D and playing it back on its parallax
barrier 3D monitor. It also captures 5 megapixel still images in
3D and can also capture video and still photos in standard 2D.
109
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
The twin-lens Sony Bloggie 3D
captures Full HD (1920 × 1080)
MP4 video and 5 megapixel
still photos in 2D or 3D using
two image sensors, a stereo
microphone and built-in LED
light. The Bloggie 3D has an
autostereoscopic screen to
preview the 3D content you’ve
captured.
Mobile devices have small
3D camera modules built in.
Courtesy of Sharp.
The DXG-5D7V pocket camcorder has a 3.2-inch 3D TFT LCD
autostereoscopic screen and 4x digital zoom. It can capture 2D
or 3D H.264 AVI video clips and 5 megapixel stills. To display 3D
stills and movies you connect the device to a 3D display using
HDMI, USB or AV cables.
HD
Most of these cameras can
capture movies in high definition (HD) 3D. There are two
HD resolutions of HD—1080
x 1920 called 1080 or Full HD
and 720 x 1280 called 720
HD. Sometimes the number
is followed by the letter i (for
interlaced) or p (for progressive).
110
The Minuro 3D Webcam sends 800 x 600 anaglyph videos that
viewers can see in 3D when wearing red/blue glasses.
Twin-lens 3D Cameras
THE BASELINE
As you will see later in this
chapter, the distance between
the lenses when capturing a
stereo pair has a big influence on the results. Generally
a distance shorter than that
between your eyes is best
for close-ups and a distance
greater is best for distant
landscapes. The cameras
shown in this section have
distances that are much narrower to slightly greater than
the distance between the
average user’s eyes.
One of the fastest growing categories of twin-lens 3D cameras
includes those integrated into mobile devices such as handheld games, tablets and smartphones. A big part of the reason
these devices are becoming so popular is that adding a single
viewer autostereoscopic monitor doesn’t add much to their
cost. Their 3D capabilities can then be used not just to show
3D stills and movies and play games but also to improve the
user interface. Since it will eventually cost so little to add 3D
to these devices, and it adds so much to the user experience,
it’s not hard to imagine a day when they will be taken for
granted.
The Nintendo 3DS has two
lenses on the back of the camera
for stereo photography. The
captured images and movies
can be displayed in 3D on the
device’s autostereoscopic screen.
The LG Optimus 3D smart phone features a 4.3-inch WVGA
autostereoscopic display for watching 3D movies, playing 3D
video games and recording and sharing 3D still images and
videos. It has two lenses linked to two 5 megapixel sensors so
you can create your own 3D content and seamlessly share it
with others through YouTube in 3D with the press of a button.
111
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
Single-lens Cameras
LOCKING SETTINGS
When you take one picture
in a stereo pair and then the
other, you want to keep the
camera settings the same for
both shots. How to do this is
discussed later in this chapter in the section “Taking the
Stereo Pair—One image at a
Time” along with other useful
tips.
give you outstanding results, at least when the light is bright.
Y
ou can use single-lens cameras to capture stereo images
using a variety of methods. When you do so just make
sure the camera’s zoom, exposure, white balance and focus
settings are the same for both pictures in each stereo pair.
With the exception of twin camera rigs wired together electronically, single lens cameras are normally used to photograph static subjects by moving a camera sideways between
shots about the distance between your eyes—2.5 inches
(63mm). As you do so, the lens axes for both shots should be
parallel with no toe-in or other rotation.
Cha Cha
USING JUST ONE LENS IN A
PAIR OF LENSES
Some stereo cameras can be
set to take the two images in
a stereo pair independently.
This is normally done when
you want to change the
distance between the lenses
when photographing a subject that is very close or a
scene that’s far away. This is
discussed in the section on
“Understanding the Baseline”
later in this chapter.
112
method
One very common technique used to capture a stereo pair is
sometimes referred to as the cha-cha method because you move
a single-lens camera 2–3 inches between shots just by shifting your weight from the left foot to the right. While shifting,
keep your elbows pressed tight to your body with the camera
as steady as possible. With practice this approach works surprisingly well for static subjects but it can’t be used if anything in the scene is moving.
Moving
vehicle method
You can take a stereo pair by shooting from a moving vehicle
while aiming the camera perpendicular to the direction of
travel. (Our attorneys insist that we mention that you should
not do this when personally driving or flying the vehicle.)
How long to pause between shots depends on your speed so
try a number of intervals, none of them longer than a few seconds and a few as short as possible. If your camera has a continuous mode, use it to capture a series of images. Later you
can see which pair give the best 3D image. Since the vehicle
is moving, you need bright light and a fast shutter speed to
avoid blur in your images. You should also avoid foreground
objects that speed by. Finally, if you are photographing out
the right side of the vehicle, you will be taking the photos
out of their normal order—the right picture first then the left
instead of the other way around. Fuji 3D cameras have a Turn
command that can reverse the images for you automatically
and it’s discussed in the Hyperstereo section later in this chapter.
Stereo Photography—An Introduction
LET US COUNT THE WAYS
Some Cyber-shot cameras
have three ways to create 3D
effects:
• A Sweep Panorama setting
uses a sweeping motion to
capture and process up to 15
images into a 3D panoramas.
Sweep
method
Single-lens cameras are available that capture stereo pairs
as you sweep the camera horizontally. As you sweep it, the
camera captures a number of images from slightly different
angles and then software processes two or more into a stereo
pair.
• A Sweep Multi-Angle exposure is similar to a sweep
panorama but the images are
processed into a 3D picture
that you view on the camera’s 2D screen by tilting the
camera back and forth. This
makes it seem as if you are
actually moving your viewpoint or walking around your
subject. It’s much like wiggle
3D.
• A 3D still image is processed at the same time as a
sweep multi-angle picture but
is a stereo pair that can be
viewed by any of the techniques discussed in this book.
Sony’s NEX-3 and NEX-5 interchangeable lens cameras can
capture 3D images that can be viewed on compatible TVs. To
capture a 3D panorama you select the mode and then hold down
the shutter button as you sweep the camera from side to side,
or up and down. The camera captures a series of images along
the sweep and uses them to create one of three kinds of stereo
images. (See box to left).
Slide
A spirit level on the camera,
tripod, or slide bar lets you be
sure your camera is perfectly
level.
bars
When using a single lens camera to capture stereo pairs a
slide bar mounted on a tripod keeps the lens axes parallel,
and avoids rotation as you move the camera between the first
and second images. The downside is that you have to carry
the slide bar and a tripod with you. A short one is ideal for
close-ups (hypostereo) but a longer one is needed for distant
scenes (hyperstereo) and there are limitations on how long a
bar is feasible. Ideally a slide bar has a scale so you know how
far you’ve moved the camera between shots.
Since 3D specific slide bars are hard to find, many people use
a macro focusing rail to move the camera between images. If
you are handy you can build your own slide bar following
any of the many DIY instructions on the Internet. Just search
for ‘do it yourself slide bar.”
113
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
The 3D HERO system lets you
strap together two 1080p HD
HERO cameras to form a 1080p
3D camera that can be worn
almost anywhere on your head,
body or on gear/vehicles. A
synchronization cable plugs
into the back of each camera
so a single shutter button
controls both cameras. It’s
also waterproof up to 180 feet.
Courtesy of www.gopro.com.
A camera bar from Really Right Stuff lets you mount two
cameras or smoothly move the camera between shots when
using one camera. ©2011 Really Right Stuff. Image used with
permission from Really Right Stuff
Beam
splitters
Beam splitters use mirrors to instantaneously capture a side
by side stereo pair including moving subjects. Some beam
splitters mount on a camera body just like a normal lens but
others screw into the filter threads of an existing lens, usually one of normal focal length (the 35mm camera equivalent
of a 50mm lens) but only on lenses where the filter threads
used to attach it don’t rotate as you focus. Because these beam
splitters capture two images on the same frame, each image is
vertical even though you hold the camera horizontally.
Beam splitters often use a 50/50 mirror that captures one
image through the glass and the other is the reflection in the
glass. Unfortunately, this cuts the light in half for each image
so exposure times increase or depth of field decreases. On top
of this the lenses are very slow—having a maximum aperture
of only f/12 or so.
If your stereo pair can be printed
on a 4 x 6 inch print, the Loreo
Deluxe 3D Viewer is just the thing
to view them with. Courtesy of
Loreo.com.
114
One advantage of this device is that each stereo pair is combined in the same file and can be printed as a single image at
any photo outlet. If you print them as 4 x 6 inch prints you
can view them in 3D using a loreo viewer designed specifically for prints of that size.
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
Placing
the
Stereo Window
THE 3 RS
When adjusting a stereo pair
keep the 3Rs in mind—moving
the Right image to the Right
makes things in the fused image Recede.
PARALLAX VS STEREO
WINDOW
Fuji calls the placement of
the stereo window “Parallax
Control” and has a parallax
control lever on the camera
you can use to adjust it’s
placement.
A
s you saw in the previous section, when you focus a Fuji
3D camera you also place the stereo window at the same
point on which you focus. When you then fuse the stereo
pair—be it on the camera, a stereo card, a TV, computer
monitor, or a cinema screen—the 3D image appears to fall on
a transparent plane at the surface of the physical image. This
transparent plane is what’s referred to as the stereo window
and although it’s placed when you take a picture you can
move it forward and back in the scene using a photo-editing
program such as StereoPhoto Maker as discussed in the Adjusting a Stereo Window section in Chapter 4. Its placement has
a dramatic impact on how depth is presented and how easily
a viewer can fuse the stereo pair.
To see the effect of moving the stereo window you superimpose the two images in a stereo pair so you can see through
the top one to the bottom one. By then horizontally moving
the images relative to each other you can superimpose identical points found in both images—technically called homologous points. The stereo window always falls on the points you
superimpose.
The driver’s head enlarged to
better show the disparity.
HOMOLOGOUS WHAT?
Homologous points are identical points in both images in
a stereo pair. For example, in
a portrait it would refer to a
point on the right eye in each
photo. The distance between
these points when the images
in the pair are superimposed
is called disparity.
130
Here the near horse’s eyes overlap exactly but the more distant
driver is separated into two side by side images. That separation
is called disparity.
Placing the Stereo Window
WINDOW VIOLATION
When deliberately placing the
stereo window behind something you want to appear in
front of the stereo window it’s
best if those parts of the scene
to be in front of the window
don’t touch the edge of the
image frame.
Effects
o f p l a c i n g t h e s t e r e o w i nd o w
If you fuse the stereo pair as you move the stereo window,
you’ll see that the window appears to remain in a fixed position while the scene moves back and forth through it. Depending on where you place it, here is what you can expect to
see:
³³When you place the stereo window on the closest part of
the scene, or even a little in front of it, all of the scene appears
to lie behind the window—called positive parallax. It appears
as if you are looking at the scene through a window but the
3D effects are not very dramatic. Most people find this the
best placement for fusing images with minimal effort and
discomfort.
³³When you place the stereo window on the most distant
part of the scene, all of the scene appears to lie in front of the
window—called negative parallax. This gives a more dramatic
3D effect, but is a strain to view. In fact there are people who
believe stereo movies died in the 1950s because this “pokein-the-eye” effect was overdone. As early as the 1930s Edwin
Land was quoted as saying when alluding to the coming-outthru the screen effects that later characterized the 3D films
of the early 50s, “…to intrude too obviously on the real world of
the auditorium can detract from our ability to enjoy vicariously the
world of the motion picture as it unfolds on the screen. Those who
voice a general objection to the heightened realism of stereo may well
be protesting against the violation of this proper boundary. Our
great goal should be to make movies as real as life around us, but
this reality must be confined to the “other side” of the proscenium
(stereo window). The greater the technological perfection of this
other world, the more wholely we can identify ourselves with it—
while safely outside.”
Negative parallax causes objects
to pop out of the stereo window.
Zero parallax places objects flush
with the window. Positive parallax
causes objects to appear as if you
are viewing them through the
window.
When using this effect it’s best if those parts of the scene in
front of the window don’t touch the frame or they will have
an amputated appearance. It will appear as if an object in
front of the stereo window is cut off by the window behind it.
This doesn’t happen in the real world, so it appears confusing
and is referred to as a window violation. One way to eliminate
the violation is to add a floating border to the image as described in the section Adding a Floating Window in Chapter 4.
³³When you place the stereo window on the middle
ground, objects closer to the camera appear to lie in front of
the window and more distant objects appear behind it—called
131
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
CROPPING THE ALIGNED
IMAGES
When you move the images
horizontally to align points
for the stereo window, the
images slide past each other
so the left and right edges
overhang the central twolayer-part of the image. As a
result these overhangs don’t
appear in both images. If you
don’t crop them out they will
appear in the fused 3D as
floating edges. When you do
crop, be sure the points that
are superimposed are retained
in both images.
OOPS
The manual that comes with
the Fuji W3 camera states
that you can adjust parallax
manually in shooting mode.
It also states that after you
have adjusted it in shooting or
playback mode you can reset
it by pressing the 3D button twice. To do either Power
Management on the setup
menu must be set to Quick
AF.
zero parallax. This is a bit of a compromise between the other
two alignments and works well when you want just part of
the scene to protrude into your space. Again, any element in
the scene that you want to protrude shouldn’t touch the edges
of the frame.
Which alignment you use depends on the subject matter and
what you want to show. For example, a portrait may work
best when slightly behind the window so the near points pop
out from the screen. For a landscape, you may put the front
most object at or slightly behind the window so you appear to
be looking at the scene through a window.
Seeing
t h e s t e r e o w i nd o w o n a
F u j i 3D
camera
On Fuji Real 3D cameras you can use the parallax control to
manually move the stereo window forward and back while in
playback mode and see the effect on the monitor. The amount
of change is displayed in the lowerright corner of the monitor.
Just as when you adjust the stereo window in a photo-editing
program, the images shift horizontally. As they do so, the
monitor only displays the central portion containing parts of
the scene common to both images and this area shrinks as you
move the stereo window farther back in the scene.
The parallax control lever on the Fuji W3 is on the top of the
camera and lets you adjust the position of the stereo window by
rotating it forward and back.
132
Placing the Stereo Window
http://www.shortcourses.com/stereo/stereo-window.gif
Click for an animated GIF shouwing the effects of moving the
stereo window between the closest and most distant part of the
scene
Here the stereo window has been placed on the closest stone
so it looks like everything in the scene is behind or touching the
stereo window.
Here the stereo window has been placed on the buildings in
the background making the stone sculpture jump out from the
image.
133
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
Adjusting The Stereo Baseline On Fuji Real 3D Cameras
F
In INDIVID SHUTTER 3D mode,
the first image is displayed
transparently so you can align the
second image.
uji Real 3D camera have two commands that let you
change the baseline even though the lenses remain fixed.
They do so by taking both photos in a stereo pair with the left
lens. The second photo is taken manually just like the first
one or automatically at a specified interval. No matter which
approach you use, the two photos are combined into a single
MPO file and can be viewed just like any other pair. These
modes are used when photographing close-ups or distant
scenes where you need to change the baseline anywhere from
a half-inch or several feet. Provided nothing in the scene is
moving, you can take as much time as necessary to set up the
second shot.
ABOUT THESE SETTINGS
I nd i v i d S h u t t e r 3D
The step-by-step instruction in this section refer to
the Fuji W3. The W1 has the
same settings but you access
them differently. Refer to your
camera manual for detailed
instructions.
This setting is used when you want to capture a stereo pair by
manually taking each image separately.
After you follow these instructions to make your settings,
you only have to select the
mode the next time unless
you want to change settings.
Your changes are remembered even if you turn the
camera off and then back on.
1. Turn the Mode dial on the back of the camera to A3D. If using this mode for macro photography press the 3D button to
switch to 2D, then press the macro point on the Selector button marked with a flower blossom icon. When macro mode is
on, the same icon is displayed on the monitor.
2. With the camera on, press Menu to display the shooting
menu, highlight SHOOTING MODE and press the right point
on the Selector button.
3. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to highlight the INDIVID. SHUTTER 3D and press OK to return to
the shooting menu.
4. Press the down button on the Selector button to highlight
TURN, then press the right point to display choices.
5. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to
highlight the direction in which you want to capture images
(the default is 1 -> 2) then press OK to return to the shooting
menu.
The Mode dial and Selector
button on the back of the W3.
146
6. Press BACK to hide the menu and two camera icons numbered 1 and 2 (for left and right image) are displayed on the
monitor. The number of the image to be captured next is
highlighted.
Understanding the Baseline
ALIGNMENT
When you capture two images
in a stereo pair separately,
the images are likely to have
alignment problems. These
can be corrected using StereoPhoto Maker as discussed
in Chapter 4.
7. Take the first shot (the camera uses the left lens) and the
captured image is displayed semi transparently on the monitor so you can align the second shot in live view. The icon for
the second shot is highlighted. (To exit at this point without
taking the second shot, press BACK or turn off the camera.)
8. Using the first shot as a guide, reposition the camera’s left
lens and take the second shot in the stereo pair.
9. Take the second picture in the pair and review the results
in 3D on the monitor. You might try switching to playback
mode and using the parallax control to adjust the stereo
window as described in the Placing the Stereo Window section
earlier in this chapter.
WHY TURN?
One application of the TURN
command is when photographing out of the right side
of a vehicle such as an airplane. This is discussed in the
section on Hyperstereo.
I n t e r v a l 3D S h o o t i n g
This setting is ideal when capturing stereo pairs of distant
scenes from a moving vehicle such as a plane, train or automobile. You take the first picture and the second is taken
automatically after a specified period up to 10 seconds long.
(See Calculating a Stereo Interval on page 85.) One of the best
things about this procedure is you don’t have to press the
shutter button to take the second picture. You can therefore
really brace yourself so the camera loves as little as possible
between shots.
1. Turn the Mode dial on the back of the camera to A3D.
REMEMBER THE RULE?
You may not be able to fuse
the images if the parallax
between the two positions is
too great. The best results will
be achieved if the distance the
camera is moved between the
two shots is between 1/30th
and 1/50th of the distance to
the subject. When doing macro photography the baseline is
often less than an inch.
2. With the camera on, press Menu to display the shooting
menu, highlight SHOOTING MODE and press the right point
on the Selector button.
3. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to highlight the INTERVAL 3D SHOOTING and press OK to return
to the shooting menu.
4. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to
highlight the 3D INTERVAL TIME and press the right point to
display a list of times.
5. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to
highlight a time (Minimum is about 0.8 seconds) then press
OK to return to the shooting menu. Faster speeds are best for
closer subjects, or when photographing from faster-moving
vehicles such as airplanes. The images may be hard to fuse if
the parallax between the two shots is too great or if there is a
foreground object between the camera and subject.
147
Chapter 3 Capturing Stereo Photographs
6. Press the down button on the Selector button to highlight
TURN, then press the right point to display choices.
7. Press the up or down button on the Selector button to
highlight the direction in which you want to capture images
(the default is 1 -> 2) then press OK to return to the shooting
menu.
8. Press BACK to hide the menu and two camera icons numbered 1 and 2 (for left and right image) are displayed on the
monitor. The number of the image to be captured next is
highlighted.
9. Hold the camera as steady as possible, pointed perpendicular to the direction of travel, and press the shutter button to
take the first shot. A timer for the interval time you selected
is displayed and, as you continue holding the camera in the
same position, the second shot is taken when the timer reaches zero. You can’t use any camera control while the timer is
active and if you turn off the camera before the second shot is
taken, no picture will be recorded.
This stereo pair, shown as here an anaglyph, was taken out
of the window of an airliner on it’s descent into LAX. During
descents like this the engines are throttled back and the plane
is almost gliding so turbulence and vibrations are often at a
minimum.
148
Introduction to Editing Images
Introduction
to
Editing Images
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/
Click to visit the Web site where
you download StereoPhoto Maker.
MYFINEPIX STUDIO?
Fuji supplies a free MyFinePix
Studio application with their
Real 3D cameras. This is a
very polished program and
is great for scrolling through
your images and performing a
limited number of tasks. The
program is not as comprehensive as StereoPhoto Maker
and we describe it in full later
in this chapter.
IMAGE EDITING AND FORMATTING FOR DIGITAL PROJECTION
SPM makes the following recommendations about preparing images for projection:
• All the images may be
cropped identically by defining
the top-left and bottom-right
x,y coordinates.
S
tereo images, whether captured with a single lens or twinlens camera almost always require at least some modest
adjustments. The goal is to both maximize their aesthetic
quality and make them easier and more comfortable to fuse.
If your stereo pairs are captured instantaneously you will
have fewer adjustments to make than if you take the two images separately while moving the camera between exposures.
However, even instantaneous pairs often have alignment,
color, or exposure problems that need adjustment. In this
chapter we introduce you to a variety of editing tools such as
MyFinePix Studio and Photoshop but the real concentration
is on Masuji Suto’s StereoPhoto Maker (often referred to as
SPM). This powerful and amazingly well-done application is
the main editing tool used by most stereo photographers and
it’s free.
SPM is dedicated to 3D images and has an amazing assortment of tools not only to adjust your images, but also to create
such things as Web galleries and interesting printouts. The
program is ideal if you use a camera that captures images in
the MPO format because is fully supports that file format.
In this section we introduce you to SPM but don’t try to help
you fully master it. The help file that comes with the program
is hundreds of pages long and we don’t try to convey all of
that detail. Instead we follow the main path through each
of the tasks you are most likely to use without complicating
things by exploring side paths and exotic topics. We open
with a discussion of some background topics and then, starting with the section Aligning Images Automatically, we discuss
many of the most frequently used functions.
• Images may be resized to
a common size, optionally
sharpened and swapped leftfor-right.
• Images intended for display
on 3D DLP TV’s should be
1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080
depending upon the native
resolution of your TV.
• You may add user-defined
text (such as a copyright
notice).
• You may add a custom logo
directly on the image or in a
colored area.
To display Exif information on a file, pull down the File menu and
click File Property to display a dialog box of the same name.
165
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
Introduction
to
StereoPhoto Maker
SPM?
Because the name StereoPhoto Maker is so long, most
references to it in the literature, including this book, are
by its initials—SPM. We use
the same reference to the
program.
W
hen you open SPM there isn’t much to see—just a title
bar, menu bar, toolbar, a large black image area and a
status bar.
PCS ONLY
SPM is only available in a PC
version so Mac users use Windows emulation to run it.
OOPS
When you use an adjustment
command and don’t like the
results you can always click
the Undo and Redo buttons on
the toolbar or pull down the
Edit menu and click Undo or
Redo.
DEFAULTS
The instructions given in this
chapter for SPM assume you
have not changed any default
settings by pulling down the
Edit menu and clicking Preferences to display a tabbed
dialog box.
SPM HELP PDF
If you have Adobe Acrobat,
copy the URL of SPM’s Help
page into the dialog box displayed when you pull down
the File menu and select first
Create PDF, then From Web
Page. Specify that it convert
3 levels and in a few minutes
you will have a 400 page PDF
file that’s fully searchable
by Adobe’s powerful search
features.
166
The SPM window.
There are three ways to execute commands:
³³Using menus is probably the best way to start because all
you have to do is select choices from a list so they are easier to
find and remember. On the next page you’ll see illustrations
of all of the program’s menus. Most of the listed commands
are not displayed until you open an image file. Scan through
the menus to see if you find anything of interest, then use
search to find them in this book or the program’s help file. To
display a popup menu when working on images, right-click
either image. The commands listed on the menu are the same
as those on the menu bar.
³³Clicking toolbar buttons is faster than using menus, but it
takes a while to get used to them. To see the name and function of a button, point to it.
³³Pressing shortcut keys is very fast but you have to remember the keys to press. These are listed next to each command
on the menu so you can learn them as you go along. To see
which shortcut keys are available check the menus displayed
on the next page. If there are shortcut keys for a command
they will be listed to the command’s right. When two keys
are connected by a plus sign, as in Ctrl+A, it means you hold
down the first key while you press and release the second.
Introduction to Editing Images
Here are all of the menus you can
pull down from the menu bar.
Most of the commands shown
here are only displayed once you
open an image file. To the right of
many commands are the shortcut
keys you can press to execute
them instead of using the menu.
Right-click an image to display a
popup menu that lets you display
menu commands.
If you need help at any point
you’ll find that StereoPhoto Maker
has an extensive help system that
not only explains settings, but
also discusses the principles of
stereo photography.
ABORTING CHANGES
Most settings are made in dialog boxes, most of which have
Reset and Cancel buttons that
let you abort changes you
have made.
167
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
Editing Workflow
B
efore beginning editing, you should have a clear idea of
what steps to follow on a consistent basis. Following a
fixed sequence of events, called a workflow, greatly simplifies
the editing process, makes it easy to find files later, and reduces the chances of errors—such as overwriting files.
Preparing
The easiest way to transfer files
from your camera to folders on
your hard drive is with a card
reader that plugs into a USB slot.
your folders
One of the first steps in your workflow is to figure out how
you will store your projects and files on the hard drive. David
Starkman, a well-known stereophotographer who has been
doing this for years, recommends a minimum of four folders:
³³Subject or project title folder is named to reflect its contents, perhaps a person, place or event. This folder is used to
hold the other folders, and not to hold files.
³³MPOs folder holds your original image files although
backup copies of those files should be stored elsewhere­—ideally in a place where the same accident can’t destroy both
copies.
³³Aligned Pairs folder is used for your adjusted 3D pairs.
A suggested menu tree.
³³Edited Pairs folder is where you store images you have
been further adjusted for printing or other purposes.
³³Movies folder (optional) is used to store 3D movie files.
WILL THERE BE
ANYTHING ELSE?
³³2D JPEGs folder (optional) is used to store 2D JPEG images
that some 3D cameras can capture along with a correspondDavid’s Partner, Susan Pining MPO file. David doesn’t use this folder even though the
sky, uses the same folders he
default setting on Fuji 3D cameras is to save both an MPO file
does, but adds one named
AlignedTIFFpairs where she
and a corresponding JPEG (actually a copy of the left image
first saves pairs in the TIFF
in the MPO file). Others capture this additional stand-alone
format before editing them in
JPEG so they can identify files on programs such as PhotoPhotoshop.
shop, Lightroom and even Windows Explorer that don’t support the MPO format and hence don’t display thumbnails of
MPO images.
http://www.photocourse.com/itext/workflow/workflow2.pdf
Editing
Click to open a PDF on digital
photography workflow.
168
your files
Once you’ve uploaded your MPO files to the MPOs folder,
it’s time to edit them. The steps you follow to ensure that you
have the best possible stereo pairs include but are not limited
to the following.
Aligning Images Automatically
Aligning Images Automatically
AUTOMATIC ALIGNMENT
On earlier versions of StereoPhoto Maker Automatic Alignment only works after you install a second program called
Autopano. If you encounter
problems you might want to
upgrade to the latest version
of StereoPhoto Maker.
ROTATIONAL MISALIGNMENT
T
he two images in a stereo pair should be perfectly aligned.
Unfortunately, in the real world, even those taken instantaneously can be out of alignment. For this reason aligning
images is the first adjustment you should make, and you
should make it on every image unless you find your camera
is perfect. When you do so automatically, the images are not
just aligned; the stereo window is also adjusted and the images are cropped as described in the next section.
To adjust alignment automatically, pull down the Adjust
menu and select Auto Alignment. In a few moments the Auto
alignment values dialog box appears with a summary of the
adjustments made.
If your images are rotationally
misaligned you can also correct them as described in the
Easy Adjustment section later
in this chapter.
STORED ALIGNMENT DATA
When you align images, SPM
creates a folder named alignment, and in that folder stores
information for each image so
you can use the same alignments again. The data is
stored in a file with the same
name as the original file but
with the extension .alv.
RESETTING ALIGNMENT
After adjusting alignment, you
can reset it by pulling down
the Adjust menu and selecting
Alignment (Reset) or clicking
the button of the same name
on the toolbar.
When auto alignment is complete, the alignment values are
displayed in a dialog box.
The disparity of the infinity-points is given as a fraction of the
image’s width as well as the number of pixels, and warns you
if it is greater than 1/25th so nearer points can come through
the window. Disparity of these points should be somewhere
between 1/25th (4%) and 1/30 (3.3%) to provide good depth
and comfortable viewing.
187
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
Aligning Images Manually
Y
ou can align images in a stereo pair manually by pressing the arrow keys on the keyboard and as you do so
the alignment values and final cropped size of the image are
displayed on the status line.
Aligning
images
To begin, click the Color Anaglyph button on the toolbar. This
stereo format makes it easier to align the images because they
are superimposed and it’s easy to see their alignment relative
to each other.
The SPM Adjust menu is cluttered
with a number of commands that
can be reduced to the sentence
“To move the image in any
direction, press the corresponding
arrow key, and when you want
to limit the movement to a single
pixel hold down Shift while doing
so.
FUJI ADJUSTMENT
Vertical misalignment is
caused when one camera lens
is pointed up or down relative
to the other. To correct this in
Fuji Real 3D cameras, use the
Opt Axis Control setting on
the Set-up menu. A plus setting raises the left lens.
Normally you adjust the vertical alignment to correct errors.
Changing the horizontal alignment to vary the image’s disparity, doesn’t correct errors, it adjusts the position of the stereo
window. However, you can move the images horizontally so
the items you are trying to align vertically temporarily overlap. This makes it easier to see the vertical alignment. When
finished adjusting the vertical alignment you can realign the
images horizontally to place the stereo window as described
in the Adjusting the Stereo Window section later in this chapter.
Use the following keys to align the images with your anaglyph glasses off and on—off when you want to see the shifts
you are making and on when you want to see the results.
³³To move an image in any direction, press the arrow keys
on the keyboard.
³³To move an image a single pixel at a time, hold down Shift
while pressing the arrow keys.
Cropping
THERE ARE OTHER WAYS
• You can adjust alignment
using the Alignment mode
discussed in the Adjusting the
Stereo Window section later in
this chapter.
• You can also use the horizontal and vertical sliders
displayed when you use the
Easy Adjustment command
discussed next.
188
adjusted images
As you move the images to align them, the area common to
both images gets smaller. You can actually see this on the
screen and it is explained in the Understanding the Baseline
section in Chapter 3. If you use the Auto Alignment command,
cropping is done automatically so only the common areas
are retained. However, if you align them manually, you have
to manually crop them as described in the Cropping Images
section later in this chapter. Be deliberate with this cropping
because if you adjust them again later, the images will have to
be cropped again, making them even smaller.
Aligning Images Automatically
CONFUSED?
Although we refer to “adjusting the stereo window,” that’s
not what’s really going on.
As demonstrated with the tip
below about using the mouse
pointer, the stereo window
remains fixed. When editing,
it always lies on the surface of
the screen. As you press the
arrow keys to move the images horizontally relative to each
other in 3D, the content of the
scene moves back and forth
through the window. Your
adjustment determines which
parts of the scene line flush
with the window and which lie
in front of or behind it.
To position the stereo window you slide one or both images
horizontally to superimpose points in the scene. It’s like sliding
one playing card past another. Parts of each card hang off at the
ends and only the central portion contains both cards. The ends
should be cropped off and only the central portion retained. As
you move the stereo window to cover more distant parts of the
scene, the width of the area common to both images increasingly
narrows. On the Fuji Real 3D cameras you can see the common
area shrink as you adjust parallax.
Alignment
To turn an alignment grid on or
off pull down the View menu and
click Grid Settings to display a
dialog box of the same name.
Click the Show Grid check box to
turn the grid on or off. You can
also drag the sliders to adjust
how fine the grid is.
t i p s a nd t r i c k s
As you adjust the stereo window manually in anaglyph
mode, put on your anaglyph glasses and move the mouse
pointer around the screen. It always seems positioned at the
screen’s surface and relative to it, parts of the scene appear
to be on the same or different planes. You can use this visual
guide to help you identify where the stereo window is. Just
point to the part of the scene where you want it placed, then
as you adjust the images horizontally move them until the
selected part of the scene appears to be on the same plane as
the pointer.
An even more accurate method is to click the Real Size (100%)
button on the toolbar to display the image at its actual size
and then turn on the grid overlay. While wearing your anaglyph glasses as you move the images horizontally you can
detect very small changes in stereo depth.
189
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
Sharpening Images
T
he apparent sharpness of an image depends a great deal
on how much contrast there is along edges and lines. If
an image looks soft, it can often be improved by sharpening,
a process that increases this contrast. Many photographers
sharpen almost every image, ignoring this aspect only for
images that are deliberately soft. The secret is to not over
sharpen, or the sharpening becomes obvious and you begin
to see artifacts. Generally, sharpening is more obvious on the
screen than in printouts so experiment to see what works best
for you.
To begin sharpening, pull down the Edit menu and click
Sharpen to display a dialog box of the same name. Enter a
sharpness value from 1 (Low) to 50 (High).
The image used in the sharpening
before and after illustrations
below.
The Sharpness dialog box.
The effect depends on the degree of sharpening and the size
of the image with the effects being more obvious on smaller
images.
Here the image of the sign with the building in the background
was sharpened using the maximum setting. The sign in the
image is shown here greatly enlarged before (left) and after
(right) sharpening. You can see how the text is outlined by
sharpening to increase it’s contrast against the background. All
other edges in the image are enhanced the same way.
196
Adjusting the Stereo Window
Adjusting
the
Stereo Window
SO, WHICH DIRECTION DO I
MOVE IT?
W
Moving the right image to the
right causes it to recede back
into the screen, while moving
it to the left causes it to pop
out. On Fuji Real 3D cameras
both images move at the
same time.
Ways
When you want everything
behind the stereo window the
3L Rule states that you should
see Less to the Left in the Left
eye view.
HOMOLOGOUS WHAT?
Homologous points are identical points in both images in
a stereo pair. For example,
in a portrait the term might
refer to a small point on the
right eye in each photo. The
distance between these points
when the images in the pair
are superimposed is called
disparity.
hen you fuse a stereo image, a virtual stereo window
forms at the physical surface of the image be it a stereocard, printed page, monitor, TV or cinema screen. Throughout previous sections of this book we’ve discussed a number
of ways to adjust the stereo window. Here we summarize
those steps and add a new one—Alignment mode.
t o a d j u s t t h e s t e r e o w i nd o w
Because the placement of the stereo window is so important,
there are a number of ways to adjust it.
³³Fuji Real 3D cameras normally place the stereo window on
the plane of critical focus at the time you take a picture. This is
discussed in the Placing the Stereo Window section in Chapter
3.
³³To align images in and place the stereo window automatically, use SPM’s Auto Alignment command discussed in the
Aligning Images Automatically section earlier in this chapter.
³³To automatically align images and place the stereo window in a batch, even hundreds, of images, use the Multi
Conversion command discussed in a section of that same name
that follows.
³³Alignment mode displays cross hairs that you use to click
on the parts of the scene in each window that you want superimposed to position the stereo window. To use this setting
pull down the Adjust menu and select Alignment mode. As you
then move the mouse pointer, the cross hairs follow as you
click the homologous points, first in the left image and then in
the right. At that point the adjustments, including vertical
alignment, are applied to the images and they are cropped,
if necessary. Normally, you click points in the nearest part
of the scene, but for objects that do not touch the sides of the
frame you can click points farther back in the scene so the
nearer parts appear to be in front of the stereo window.
³³Easy Adjustment lets you click the horizontal adjustment
arrows or drag slider bars as you watch the effect on the stereo window. This is discussed in the Easy Adjustment section
earlier in this chapter.
³³To adjust the stereo window manually begin by clicking
the Color Anaglyph button to display the pair as an anaglyph
197
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
then press the left and right arrows. This approach is discussed in the Aligning Images Manually section earlier in this
chapter.
³³For tips on adjusting the stereo window and why aligned
http://www.shortcourses.com/stereo/example.MPO
images need to be cropped, see the Aligning Images Manually
section earlier in this chapter.
Click to download an MPO stereo
image you can use to follow this
mini-tutorial.
Exploring
t h e s t e r e o w i nd o w w i t h
SPM
While wearing a pair of red/cyan glasses you can use StereoPhoto Maker to explore how those parts of the scene that are
superimposed in the images appear to be flush with the stereo window, while other elements in the scene appear to be
in front of or behind it. The steps that follow are condensed
but each is explained in greater detail in the Placing the Stereo
Window section in Chapter 3.
1. To begin, pull down the File menu, click Open Stereo Image
and select an MPO or other stereo image file—a file containing the left and right images in a stereo pair.
2. Click the Color Anaglyph button on the toolbar to display
the image as an anaglyph. (Button names are displayed when
you point to them.)
3. Press your computer’s left and right arrow keys to change
the way the two images align, with your anaglyph glasses off
and on—off when you want to see the shifts you are making
and on when you want to see the results.
4. Superimpose the most distant points in the scene and see
how all of the nearer parts of the scene appear to lie in front
of the stereo window. When using this effect it’s best if those
parts of the scene in front of the window don’t touch the
frame—the edges of the fused stereo image.
To display a stereo pair as an
anaglyph using StereoPhoto
Maker you can click the Color
Anaglyph button on the toolbar
(top) or pull down the Stereo
menu (bottom).
198
5. Superimpose the nearest point of the scene and notice how
everything now appears as if you are looking at the scene
through a window but the 3D effects are not as dramatic.
6. Superimpose points in the middle ground to see how objects nearer the camera appear to lie in front of the window
and those father away appear behind it. Again, those elements that fall in front of the stereo window shouldn’t touch
the frame.
Adjusting the Stereo Window
Using Adjustment View
SPM’s Adjustment View command lets you see both images
in a stereo pair individually at the same time you see them
superimposed so you can see the effects of your alignment
adjustments as you make them. To begin, pull down the
Stereo menu and select Adjustment View to display the two
images in the stereo pair and below them a composite image
showing the current alignment.
ZOOMING THE IMAGES
When using Adjustment View
you can change the size of the
three images on the screen.
• Turning the mouse-wheel
zooms the images larger and
smaller.
• Pressing the F key returns
the image’s to their normal
size.
Adjustment shows the left and right images in the open stereo
pair on top and a composite image on the bottom. By pressing
the arrow keys you can change the image’s horizontal and
vertical alignment and see the effects in the composite image.
Image courtesy of Tyrell Innovations at tyrell-innovations-usa.
com.
Press the arrow keys to move the images horizontally to place
the stereo window and vertically to adjust vertical alignment
errors. (It may help if you zoom the images so you can see
details.) The ‘x’ and ‘y’ values of the position alignment are
displayed on the status bar at the bottom of the screen together with the image size (in pixels) after cropping.
199
Resizing Images
Printing
at
Kiosks
P
hoto printing kiosks are everywhere and you can easily
prepare stereo images for printing on these machines, at a
photo lab, or on your own printer.
4 x 6 prints are easy to view with
a Loreo print viewer. Courtesy of
Loreo at www.loreo.com.
A stereo pair cropped for printing on a 4 x 6 print.
1. Decide what print size you want to use and see if your local Kiosk will support it. Kiosks vary but some from Fuji will
make 6 x 8, 6 x 4, 6 x 9, and 5 x 7 inch prints.
2. Calculate the aspect ratio of your chosen print size by dividing its height into its width. For a 4 x 6 inch print that’s 6
divided by 4 for an aspect ratio of 1:1.5
The original uncropped images.
3. Use the aspect ratio to calculate the width of each image
in the pair by dividing the original width by the aspect ratio.
For example, if an image is 3648 wide x 2736 pixels tall, divide
3648 by 1.5 for a width of 1824 pixels. (To find out the size
in pixels pull down the File menu and select File Property to
display a dialog box.)
4. Use Custom Cropping to crop the images as described in
the Cropping Images section earlier in this chapter. When you
select that command it displays a dialog box where you enter
the new width of 1824 and the height of 2736.
After making your files for 4 x 6
prints, you can copy them to a
USB flash drive for the trip to the
kiosk for printing.
5. After cropping pull down the File menu and select Save
Stereo Image to save the file ready for printing.
207
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
Printing Stereo Cards
POINTS OF LIGHT
Old views were sometimes
printed on thin paper so
they could be backlit (called
French tissue) and the effect
was enhanced by pin-pricking
highlights such as candles and
lights so the pure light shines
through.
S
PM can lay out your stereo pairs in a variety of formats
including one that looks much like a vintage 19th century
stereocard.
The Stereo Card Print Setup dialog box displays the canvas on
the left and the stereo card’s position on the canvas.
A
step-by-step tutorial
1. To begin, crop the stereo pair to the needed aspect ratio for
the selected card type using the Free Cropping Option command discussed in the Cropping Images section earlier in this
chapter. The choices include:
Card type drop-down menu.
PRINT SIZES
The dimensions of cards,
other than Custom, are fixed
but you can change it’s position on the canvas and the
size of the canvas to control
the printout. For example, to
prepare an image at the photo
lab the canvas size should be
set to the size of the paper
you are printing on. If the paper is larger than the card you
can center the card or change
its margins.
208
• Custom format frames your image the same way as Classic, described below, but you can define the printing size.
• Classic stereo format assumes the traditional card size of 7
x 3.5 inches printed on 7 x 4 inch paper at a photo lab.
• Holmes format cards may be commercially printed on 6
x 4 inch paper. You can then trim off the top 0.5 inch and
mount the remaining image on a 7 x 3.5 inch card.
• 6x13 format cards may be commercially printed on 6 x 4
inch paper.
Chapter 4 Editing Your Stereo Images
C r e a t i n g A n a g l yp h s
A
naglyphs are easy to create with SPM as discussed in this
section (and with Photoshop as you will see later in this
chapter).
The Gray and Color Anaglyph
buttons and drop-down arrows.
Creating
anaglyphs
To create an anaglyph using StereoPhoto Maker, you just
open the stereo pair, pull down the Stereo menu and click
Gray Anaglyph or Color Anaglyph. Alternatively you can click
the Gray Anaglyph or Color Anaglyph drop-down arrow on the
toolbar to display a list of anaglyphs from which to choose.
³³Gray anaglyphs are gray scale images with areas rendered
in red/cyan, red/green, red/blue and red/yellow. Red/cyan
is the most popular format.
³³Color anaglyphs retain RGB information and work especially well when there is not much red or blue in the scene.
Clicking the Gray anaglyph
drop-down arrow on the toolbar
displays a pull-down menu of
gray anaglyph choices.
To save an anaglyph, pull down the File menu and click Save
Stereo Image to displays a dialog box of the same name. Turning on the No Compression Ghosting check box uses the RGB
color space to give you the best results. Be careful though
since some software programs don’t support this color space.
Clicking the Color anaglyph
drop-down arrow on the toolbar
displays a pull-down menu of
color anaglyph choices.
If you avoid scenes with extensive reds and blues, color
anaglyphs display dark but very naturalistic colors when viewed
through the glasses.
212
Creating Anaglyphs
Reducing
ghosting
Anaglyph images tend to suffer from what’s called ghosting,
where each eye sees the image intended for the other.
View these while wearing red/cyan anaglyph glasses closing first
one eye and then the other. When you do so one image will be
clear and the other a ghost.
The extent of the ghosting you experience depends on the
quality of the anaglyph glasses you are wearing, the quality of the media displaying the image and how well the two
match. Although you may not be able to eliminate ghosting
entirely, you can reduce it. Once your adjustments are made
you can display them in anaglyph mode and save them with
the Save Stereo Image command on the File menu as described
earlier in this chapter.
The AntiGhost dialog box.
To begin, open the anaglyph you want to adjust. Then, pull
down the Stereo menu, select Color Anaglyphs to display a
submenu, then select Ghost-reduced Anaglyph to display the
Anti-Ghost Dialog box.
³³Contrast [Lab] (the lower slider) and Brightness [Lab] (the
upper slider) can be adjusted to minimise ghosting. You can
also make adjustments by typing it into a text box or using
the text box’s up and down arrows.
The Anti-ghost dialog box has two
sets of sliders one for the Lab and
RGB color spaces. On both sets,
the lower slider adjusts contrast
and the upper slider adjusts
brightness.
³³Contrast [RGB] (the lower slider) and Brightness [RGB] (the
upper slider) can be adjusted to restore the original appearance but be careful not to reintroduce ghosting. You can also
make adjustments by typing it into a text box or using the text
box’s up and down arrows.
³³Save button saves the current settings.
³³Restore button applies the previously saved settings, if any.
³³Reset button cancels all settings and restores the image to
its original settings.
³³OK applies the settings to the image.
213