Shooting one video with two side cameras.

D0nal

I'm working on a design project for college. As part of it I'm adding a video conferencing facilitiy. I'm wondering if it is technologically conceivabe to use two cameras each about 45 degrees to the right and left of the user to capture one video image that would look the same as having one camera directly in front of the user?

frozenfrozen

That's how 3d works

http://3dfilmfactory.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=52&Itemid=76

Zillah

I'm not sure what you mean by "will look the same as having one camera". Can you explain what you're looking for in more detail? If you shoot with two identical cameras side by side, and then show the video side by side you can have 3D footage if people just cross their eyes and merge them.

This is a good example. Cross your eyes and then slowly uncross them while trying to focus on the "third" image in the centre. I know it sounds like a trick but it actually works.




Here is a slightly NSFW one that I think is probably the best example I've seen, the water is just amazing:
http://i.imgur.com/PtWf2.jpg

EDIT:
This one is awesome:

D0nal

Thanks for the responses. That 3d trick is fascinating. I may use it but what I originally had in mind was something along the lines of below.


My apologies for the crude nature of the diagram. For arguments sake say each side of the triangle was 1.5 meters or so. If the user was located at A and two cameras were located at B and C could by using software or otherwise an image similar to one which would be got from a single camera a D be got using the two cameras at B and C?

PopeBuckfastXVI

I've seen similar done with kinects, they also use a distance camera, of course.

So two kinects were setup almost facing each other (much wider than at 90 degrees from each other) and a 3d model was constructed from the distance cameras and textured from the visual cameras, in real time. Of course, once you have a 3d model it's straightforward to project that onto a 2d plane.

Zillah

D0nal wrote: »

Thanks for the responses. That 3d trick is fascinating. I may use it but what I originally had in mind was something along the lines of below.


My apologies for the crude nature of the diagram. For arguments sake say each side of the triangle was 1.5 meters or so. If the user was located at A and two cameras were located at B and C could by using software or otherwise an image similar to one which would be got from a single camera a D be got using the two cameras at B and C?

That is really bizarre, and I imagine would require some very sophisticated, purpose-built software to analyse the images and reconstruct a third "middle" view. Why on Earth would you want to do this?

Paulw

Zillah wrote: »

That is really bizarre, and I imagine would require some very sophisticated, purpose-built software to analyse the images and reconstruct a third "middle" view. Why on Earth would you want to do this?

I think you can do it in Photoshop. There are a few applications out there to do it. You then just need the 3D glasses to view the image. You can find a few on FlickR.

Zillah

Paulw wrote: »

I think you can do it in Photoshop. There are a few applications out there to do it. You then just need the 3D glasses to view the image. You can find a few on FlickR.

That's not what he is asking for.

sineadw

Zillah wrote: »

That's not what he is asking for.

I'm a bit baffled as to why too. Surely it's a hell of a lot easier to just place the camera where you want it? They can be made to be unobtrusive.

DaireQuinlan

sineadw wrote: »

I'm a bit baffled as to why too. Surely it's a hell of a lot easier to just place the camera where you want it? They can be made to be unobtrusive.

I was wondering about this as well. Unless the OP chimes in again it's hard to work out why. One reason I could think of would be to restore 2D footage from something that was shot in 3D ? So it'd appear as though from a camera mounted between the two 3D cameras ?

In general maybe two cameras on either side of something and again you want to reconstruct the view as from the object that's preventing you from putting the cameras there in the first place. Dunno what. Interview ? Interviewee is looking at the interviewer, two cameras either side won't capture the direct gaze of the interviewee, but interpolated you could do something.

Definately do-able*. With two streams you could construct a convex hull representing the geometry of the scene, then map each bit with the appropriate video stream or blended video streams and rotate by 22.5 degrees.

*may not be do-able