[Chimera-users] Fwd: Re: 3D stereo

[Dougherty, Matthew T]

Hi Nadir,

Very few tricks.  Stereoscopic vision is not straight forward.  My main advice is not get ahead of the industry, it is evolving and a misstep can be expensive.  Besides active shutter glasses, passive polarized glasses, IR/DLP/polarizers, sequential stereo and vertical stereo; there are another 5 methods in the wings being evaluated.  The implementation for the film industry (which have full time people with deep budgets figuring it out) has not got production process fully resolved in terms of relation to the director (e.g., are they more in the camp of the color correction crew, or in the camp of the cinematographers, or are they a new breed that enhances the production but does not dominate the process), there are a number of issues regarding quality control and being over-the-top with the effect.  Kind of like color correctors, do you want somebody who is color blind or marginal at the QC switch during production?

I consider the stereoscopic to be a 2 percent'er or maybe 15% at best; that is, it enhances the visualization but there are number of hurdles and depending on the situation, the cost benefit analysis may not pan out in many cases. But, ff you have people who have strong stereoscopic ability it could substantially enhance their speed and quality of work. 

A major bottleneck is the ability to ergonomically control the stereo parameters; imagine using a pair of binoculars and having to set them down and type in a number for an adjustment, as opposed to conveniently rotating a knob while holding the binoculars to the eye.

So my main trick is to make it work on a monitor, create a lot of product, scale it to a larger venue, and go to the stereoscopic conference in January (http://stereoscopic.org) ; unless you got big budgets and producing stereoscopic product is the end goal, then hire a consultant to dodge the bullets.  There is a guy from France who lives in Hollywood who has written a book on 3D production, if you are interested I can track down his name & number.

In a related note, we are currently evaluating dome technology.  It produces the 3D spatial effect through immersion and the peripheral vision; similar to cave technology but cheaper.
http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/infra_dome.html
http://www.e-planetarium.com/

Matt

________________________________________
From: Nadir.Mrabet at medecine.uhp-nancy.fr [Nadir.Mrabet at medecine.uhp-nancy.fr]
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2010 7:28 AM
To: Dougherty, Matthew T
Cc: Greg Couch; chimera-users at cgl.ucsf.edu BB
Subject: RE: [Chimera-users] Fwd: Re:  3D stereo

Hi Matt,



What sort of tricks have you been able to collect over your 15+ years experience
to implement stereo correctly.