[photo-3d] Dynamic Digital Depth

[Tony Alderson <aifxtony@xxxxxxx>]

After about three months of ignoring P3D, I've finally caught up with
the digests. Fortunately, there are enough knowledgeable people on this
list that I don't feel I have to comment on prior posts, the topic has
been covered!

But I am astonished that nobody has written about the field trip our
Stereo Club of Southern California took to the offices of DDD a couple
weeks ago, especially since several regular contributors to P3D were
there.

A few weeks ago, if asked (and I was!), I would have said conversion of
2D movies to stereo would be disappointing, at best, with today's
technology. I went to the DDD demo expecting to see a few cardboard
planes in poor depth relationship. I was quite surprised. These guys
actually can convert 2D movies to 3D. The process is not perfect...some
shots have anomolies that give the conversion away, but many are quite
good, and indistinguishable from original stereography.

It is not an automated process; there is no "Make 3D" button. Human
operators still have to create a depth map for at least the first and
last frames of a cut. I suspect more than that is required, as objects
enter and leave the frame. Yet, given these depth keyframes, they do
have intelligent software to track and interpolate the inbetweens. They
estimate within a year the process will be economically viable: about
the same cost as adding the embedded subtitles for second languages or
the hearing-impaired. (I'm a little skeptical, but I didn't think they
could do this at all!)

Even more astonishing, they have developed a format for 2D/3D compatible
transmission. They embed a depth map in the 2D image, and convert to
stereo in real time, using hardware in a settop box. This means they
have developed remarkable displacement software, much better than
Photoshop's, to wrap the background elements underneath the foreground.
(Try this! Most "3D" software will generate a grayscale depthmap; try
taking the 2d image and map into Photoshop and make a stereo pair with
the displacement filter. The edges will tear and wreck the stereo if you
go very far.) And the depth map only adds one or two percent to the file
size! I feel like I've been to a great magic show--I know you can't saw
a woman in half, or catch a bullet in your teeth, or pull the nine of
diamonds out of a hive of bees, but dang if they didn't do it! Talking
to the head geek, it's quite clear he has dealt with the issues; even
most 3D people don't understand right off the technical problems of
stereo conversion.

This is a company to watch.

For fast connections and current browsers (requires Flash plug-in):

www.ddd.com

For slower connections:

www.ddd3d.com

Tony Alderson