P3D Re: 2D to 3D software

[aifxtony@xxxxxxx (Tony Alderson)]

Bill Costa wrote (digest 3110):
>(...)By automatically picking the appropriate time displaced pairs and
>editing it to create a field-sequential tape, you would see true 3D images
>using a pair of shutter glasses. Of course this limits what you shoot and
>how. Think of it as an automatic version of the Pulfrich effect. (...)<

This software strikes me as an idea of only limited value. While the
results might be easier to view than a standard Pulfrich, the stereo
production will have all the problems of Pulfrich movies: namely, motion
parallax is not really the same as depth parallax, and trying to substitute
the one for the other causes all kinds of problems. It means your camera
must constantly be in motion. I suppose the software could have some
compensation for variations in speed and direction, but it gets troublesome
to shoot an entire movie with constant sideways camera motion. Clearly,
lockoffs and vertical moves cannot be allowed. Also, if there are moving
subjects in your scene, they probably will have a false position in space,
as the motion will differ from the camera motion.  Further, there is the
problem of vertical subject motion, which will lead to eye-twisting,
unless, of course, the software tears apart and recomps the image in
realtime to fix such things.

While I can see this system has potential for its design purpose of
photogrammetry, I doubt it will be of much use for 3D movies...it will have
all the shortcomings of Pulfrich illusion, but require much more expensive
glasses/display & processing. What's the point?

Tony Alderson
aifxtony@xxxxxxx
www.aifx.com



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