Re: anaglyph tips?

[P3D Oliver Dean <3d-image@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don Radovich inquired:
 
> And, more 
> importantly, is there a low cost alternative to Adobe Photoshop for 
> turning the stereo pairs into anaglyphs?

For an IBM compatible PC, I'm sure there are probably some inexpensive
shareware programs, or even freeware programs, for doing this, but a
"no-brainer" way of doing it is through a very inexpensive (about $50!)
but excellent Windows 3.1 package, which works just fine for me on
Windows 95; called VistaPro, this software package is intended for
creating nearly photo-realistic landscapes, including 4 kinds of "trees"
(the program considers a saguaro cactus a "tree!"). Since the package
enables landscapes to be generated in stereo pairs with whatever
interaxial lens separation you choose, it also has a neat capability for
generating anaglyphs from the generated pair -- OR FROM ANY OTHER STEREO
PAIR GENERATED BY OTHER PROGRAMS!  You save each image to a separate
file, named by whatever convention you choose, such as the obvious
"nameL.tga" and "nameR.tga".  

Note that the qualifier is ".tga", indicating a format which must be a
24 bit Targa file for VistaPro to handle it properly.  The Targa format
is, fortunately, rather widely used by graphics and animation artists,
and most programs today have a capability for exporting a bit map file
in 24-bit color Targa format (it can be either compressed or
uncompressed -- the VistaPro program seemed to recognize both types
correctly, the last time I tried, and it will accept images up to 4096 x
4096 pixels!)

Once you have the stereo pair, whether in color or black and white so
long as it is saved in two separate 24-bit Targa format files, making
the anaglyph takes only seconds.  In VistaPro, you start by making sure
that your are in 24-bit mode (click on "Enable 24-bit" to cause a check
mark to appear beside it within the "Image" menu). Click on the "Load"
menu item to get the drop-down list, and click on "Load Stereo".  The
program will then ask you to supply the name of your left image file. 
When it has found the file, it will then ask you for the right image
file name. When it finds that file, it automatically creates the
anaglyph and immediately displays it for you on screen, preserving the
original proportions and pixel resolution.  It does NOT produce a
"color" anaglyph -- it converts both images to grey scale first, and
THEN makes the anaglyph, which is often more satisfactory than the
"color" anaglyphs anyway, IMHO.  You can then save the anaglyph in any
one of three formats -- *.tga, *.pcx, or *.bmp --.  It doesn't get any
easier than this!  And you get a great landscape package, as well.

Note that it will align the pictures by the borders, i.e., by the window
edges, so you will have to do any horizontal or vertical window
adjustments by cropping the original image pair before you create the
anaglyph. Pairs created by VistaPro are perfectly aligned vertically,
and there is a setting you can use that affects the horizontal
alignment.

The version I have is 3.12, which was designed for Windows 3.1 but
appears to work OK with Windows 95.  The manual is very clearly written.
When I inquired about 10 months ago, the company was promising a new
version, but it hasn't happened yet, to my knowledge.  At one time the
price was only about $50 for a floppy version with a DEM (digital
elevation map -- used by the program as a basis for building a
landscape) random map generator and a handful of DEM's of famous sites,
such as Yosemite, Mars (Olympus Mons), Crater Lake, the Matterhorn, a
castle, etc.  An approximately $90 version included a CDROM with many
more DEM's and a few other goodies, but the program was the same.  

If you are interested, contact:
        Virtual Reality Labs Division of ROM Tech
        2945 McMillan Avenue, Suite 128
        San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 
        Phone (800) 829-8754 or (805) 545-8515, FAX (805) 781-2259.  
They should still be able to supply the product.  I think ROM Tech has a
web site, but I don't know the URL.

Happy anaglyphing!
-- 
Oliver Dean -- 3d-image@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dominguez Hills (near Los Angeles), Calloushernia, USA


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