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HOWTO: Blender prerendered equirectangular stereoscopic

DePingus
Honored Guest
I think I figured out how to render equirectangular (360x180 degrees) stereoscopic (3D) images sequences with Blender!!! Well...technically other people figured it out and I just put the pieces together.


Here is the full sized rendered image to try for yourself in Whirligig.
http://imgur.com/f7LM3tQ

Software:
Blender 2.72b http://www.blender.org/
noeol's Stereoscopic Rendering Blender script 1.6.9 http://www.noeol.de/s3d/
VirtualDub 1.10.4 http://www.virtualdub.org/
Whirligig 1.47 http://www.centzon.co.uk/whirligig/

How to:
There's basically 2 steps involved. First you setup an equirectangular lens on Blender's camera. Then you convert that camera using noeol's script into a stereoscopic rig.

Equirectangular Setup:
To setup an equirectangular camera lens you must first set your render engine to Cycles Render. Then select your camera and in the Lens section of the camera Settings choose Panoramic with an Equirectangular lens type. You won't see the Lens Type setting if you don't change the render engine to Cycles. That's it, try rendering a frame. Use something like FPSViewer http://www.fsoft.it/panorama/FSPViewer.htm to view the 2D panoramic image.

Stereoscopic Setup:
After setting up your 360 camera, you need to convert the same camera into a 3D stereoscopic rig. noeol's script is freakin' awesome for this. He has a great youtube tutorial on his website. WATCH THE VIDEO. Seriously. The whole thing. You're gong to be using the Side by Side stereoscopic preset and there are special instructions just for that one.

After you set it according to the video and you hit render, Blender's image viewer won't be able display the whole image but it will output the full image file to a directory you selected previously (during the video tutorial that you totally watched). If you render out an animation, you will get a sequence of images in the chosen directory. You can use VirtualDub to import that image sequence and export an AVI. Just drag the first image of the sequence into VirtualDub's main window, change the framerate to whatever you want in the video section, and save to AVI. Your video is now ready for viewing in Whiligig or LiveViewRift.

Final Thoughts:
I just pieced all this together last night and its very much a work in progress. But I do think I'm on the right track here. If anyone has anything to contribute please do! There's a lot of discussion on this topic in another thread here, but its more focused on Maya/Max/MentalRay. I hope this helps some one else.

UPDATE:
It appears that some one has solved the problems and streamlined the process. Hopefully, it will be officially supported in Blender soon. In the meantime, check out the website below for an explanation and patch.
http://www.dalaifelinto.com/?p=1009
25 REPLIES 25

Nurul3D
Explorer
@j1vvy, Thanks for your valuable feed back. I am digging in to it.

mediavr
Protege
It is possible to render accurate depth at nadir and zenith but most 360 3d renderers dont do it .. but Micoy does and it is used eg. for full dome 3d projections where the audience can sit in any direction but can still see good 3d in the dome zenith eg. in the Marvel experience tour

http://www.mtbs3d.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10804:Micoy-Awarded-Patent-for-Mu...

http://www.trentgrover.com/images/tech/big/Micoy/MicoyComp.pdf
http://trentgrover.com/tech.html

http://www.alterface-projects.com/news/new-products/the-marvel-experience-chooses-alterface-projects...

Harolddd
Honored Guest
@j1vvy
Yes, very true. It was much too low resolution. So I rendered again at higher resolution.

http://i.imgur.com/fRqMv98.jpg

Nurul3D
Explorer
Another test of SBS stereo panorama

http://i.imgur.com/H4BUeYh.jpg

Please note:
- camera shift 4"
- No camera rotation
- objects within 2 meters create slight eye strain( better to avoid putting objects very close to camera)

let me know what do you think.

Nurul3D
Explorer
Non-panoramic SBS image test

http://i.imgur.com/tZbkeQ4.jpg

Please note:
- camera shfit 6"
- camera rotation(inward) to match the virtaul camera target( this is not good for 360 degree stereo panorama)

Thanks

j1vvy
Honored Guest
@Harolddd much better. The two models look like they are floating in the air and scaled smaller than life size. But seeing them makes me feel I am at first floating realy high until I look away to everything else and I can tell I am about right to be standing.

@Nurul3D some more colors would make this easier to describe. I viewed in LiveViewRift and there is a one pixel discrepancy on the edges go together on both left and right view. Visible on the blue tea pot. The stereo of the yellow tea pot on the ceiling to my left when looking forward and up looks bad. The same tea pot looking at the back and up looks ok.

Looking at the cropped view everything looked sharper and had more depth. Some of that would be because of the number of pixels per degree. With so many different size tea pots I did not have a sense of size.

Nurul3D
Explorer
"j1vvy" wrote:
I viewed in LiveViewRift and there is a one pixel discrepancy on the edges go together on both left and right view. Visible on the blue tea pot.

- Can you please elaborate this part, I didn't understand the "pixel discrepancy" part at all, this term is absolutely new to me.

"j1vvy" wrote:
Looking at the cropped view everything looked sharper and had more depth. Some of that would be because of the number of pixels per degree.


- Can you please explain pixel per degree term, this term is new to me also.

Thanks again "j1vvy" for your valuable feedback

j1vvy
Honored Guest
There is a problem that is 1 pixel wide producing a line going through the blue tea cup in the back.

The full 360° pano is 1920 wide per eye giving 5.3 pixels per degree
The cropped view is maybe 90°wide and still 1920 pixels giving 21.3 pixels per degree.

If the pano was 4 times wider then they would be of equal.

I think you need about 12 pixels per deg to get native resolution of the DK2. Anything smaller is being up sampled while being displayed.

Nurul3D
Explorer
Thanks "j1vvy" this info is really valuable. I didn't know these information. I am going to apply this on my future test panos.

Nurul3D
Explorer
Here is a simple SBS rectangular animation test ( not pano)

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xyk6hgli9rgu8k3/AACrAZxj9K8SEg6uJP3ISGXRa?dl=0

Please note, for depth exaggeration I used extremely wide angle virtual camera lens.