3. Finding and / or creating good 3D Images.

During our extended internet searches we surprisingly found that there are many, many websites where stereoscopic 3D anaglyph images are already on display. Unfortunately, within most of the sites where we found them, the quality of the 3D imaging that was present was rather poor and unsatisfying and sorting through this kind of stuff was somewhat depressing and time consuming.

A poor quality stereoscopic 3D image in our opinion is just as bad as an out-of-focus 2D image! It's pretty much useless because it's just so frustrating to look at and it's irritating for the eyes to behold. Personally, we'd rather have no image at all to view than a bad 3D image. I'm sure that most of you will agree with this opinion.

So we tout our 3d-chicago.com website and our new 3d-negril.com website to you to see how we have done it. Also on this blog, in our left margin (down a ways), there are links to some good 3D stuff that we've so far found in our searches of the internet. These are the kinds of 3D shots that you can really enjoy! They have everything right because of the 3D correct manner in which they were taken. Good 3D still photos show folks as miniature people and they are truly a feast to the eyes, aren't they? They sure are to us! So enjoy those that we've found!


Creating 3D Images using the Fujifilm 3D camera - 

The Importance of Good Lighting 

Good 3D imaging, like all imaging, first and foremost requires good lighting. This is something for which the 3D imager must watch for or plan ahead for. Poor lighting makes the 3D images dark and depressing to view. This is especially true since the anaglyph photos are further darkened by the red - cyan glasses which must be used to focus and view them. The two effects of adequate / inadequate lighting can be both seen in the photo below.

If you look off in the distance where the late in the day lighting is excellent, that part of the photo is brilliant. But in the foreground the fact that it is nearly dusk causes the ground lighting to be not so good in the shade, consequently the images are dull. This effect is not as bad in a Piku - Piku 3D display as it is in an anaglyph image.

Look at the same photo below in this anaglyph version through your red - cyan glasses (click the photo twice for full screen) and you will really see how the glasses darkening effect further detracts from the light in the foreground of the shot.

Because of the brilliant background of downtown Chicago in this photo, it is still an acceptable shot. However, in our opinion darkness in parts of images is normally a turn off and we recommend against shooting them if you possibly can because you will rarely be satisfied with the way that they view.

The following are photos where the lighting was poor and so was the background so the shots were not acceptable to us....

The above photo has too much foreground and background darkness. The background needs lighting to illuminate it better and although the subjects faces came out ok, the foreground darkness in their clothing did not reflect the camera's flash adequately to distinguish them from the background darkness.

In the above photo, the sunlight from the back door overcame the foreground interior lighting, thus  darkening it. The foreground light might have been adequate had the back door been closed or had there been more foreground lighting.

In the above photo the white objects in the left foreground sucked up most of the light from the flash leaving the back area of the scene way too dark.

In the above photo, once again a light foreground object sucked the light away from the dark person a little behind it.

To further make our point about the effect of really good lighting for 3D, Here's a shot of an outdoor scene in good afternoon light.

Notice the ultra-white carriage and the black horse. Neither of them are affecting the scene's lighting in any way and every image in the photo is quite clear. This can be especially seen in the anaglyph photo of the scene.

Finding 3D Images on the Internet

Now please click through to this very nice 3D photo from Wikimedia of a Persian restaurant. This photo was taken with excellent indoor lighting -

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PersianEthnicRestaurantAnaglyph.jpg

You might notice that in this shot there is no outside window light entering the room to aid the ceiling lights. The scene is only lit up by about a half a dozen or so bright ceiling lights of the same magnitude that bathe the whole room in luminosity. This results in a totally bright and airy image that aids in producing an excellent 3D effect and diminishes ghosting.

If the lighting is not strong enough and / or -  the single light source is in front of you and not behind you or overhead of you - you should not take the shot! Poor lighting or lighting from in front of you can detract from the image's desired 3D effect - PERIOD! Good Lighting is half of the battle to taking good 3D shots.

The wonderful thing about the Fujifilm 3D camera is that you can immediately view the photo you just shot on its back-screen in order to see how the shot's lighting affects each dimension layer in it. You'll tell right away if the photo or video needs to be re-shot in better lighting or not.

The Importance of Camera Stabilization when Taking 3D  Video Images

It is best to keep your 3D camera stabilized during all video shooting to avoid blurring a photo or to not have the camera bounce effect found in so many poor quality 3D videos. And with your 3D video camera do not much pan around, zoom in and out or move about when shooting, unless you can do it very, very slowly so that the camera's movement is as imperceptible as possible in the video. This is because when the images are viewed, people's eyes will begin to strain and play tricks on them as they see too much 3D action taking place all at once and they'll back off from viewing the video. Movement by the subjects in the video (but not the background) is all that the eyes and the mind can deal with in order to enjoy the 3D effect in a video.

The following video exemplifies this well. Its first part shows scenes where there is a lot of camera movement  and here this detracting effect upon the scene and upon its 3D quality can be easily observed. However, in the last 1/3 of the video, there is a better scene where the camera stays stable while the actors are still quite active and moving around quite a bit within its frame.



In our opinion the excessive movement at the beginning of this video takes away from the potentially pleasing 3D effect of its scenes. We feel that the camera movement did not enhance them at all whereas the steady, stable camera in the last 1/3 of this video made the same kind of action scene so much easier to visually enjoy.

As a matter of fact, some action scenes can even be best taken as mere still photos and not as videos at all! Stills allow the viewer's eyes to take their time, feasting upon everything that is within that particular still photo's particular 3D scene. A case in point is found when you click through to this Flickr page....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/danjacob/4497218212/

Here you can lavish your eyes upon all of the implied action in this amazing scene even though it is being presented to you in a still photo! Here you can really enjoy seeing the beauty of this athlete's efforts which are shown at various in and out-of-screen depths in this amazingly well done 3D shot. The volleyball is a bit difficult to focus but if you hone in on it for a moment, it becomes very clear. By the way, this particular 3D shot was created from an original 2D image using Photo Shop layering tools! That's right, it was made from a 2D image!

If you want to know more about this cameraman's wizardry with Photo Shop, go back to it and follow through to his website where he will show you the many time consuming steps that he has to take in Photo Shop to convert 2D images into amazing 3D images like this one. We will not be going into the technical depths of this kind of work here on this blog but we wanted to make you aware that this kind of technology does exist, just in case you weren't aware of it and you might be interested in it.

Below is a video which we took moving the camera very slowly to view over 180 degrees of scenery. We stabilized it by hand. We did not use a tripod which can give better results but is not always available when pointing and shooting. 





3D Depth Perception Inside and Outside of the Flat Photo / Video Panel

One of the most amazing features of 3D shots is that their scenes can not only appear to go deep into a flat panel but portions of it can also appear to pop right out of the front of it! This effect was well shown in the 3D photo linked above and it is also well shown in the following video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHG2IWV1caE

Notice that the bullet casings being ejected from the automatic rifle in this action video appear to be ejecting right into your lap! This is the kind of effect that allows us to boast that stereoscopic 3D is the most realistic imaging available on flat screens! And this is one of the reasons that why we want to use this blog to help promote the 3D venue on the internet. It's too bad that it can only be displayed on You Tube in 360p mode because 720p or 1080p would have minimized or eliminated the shots ghosting.


Establishing your shots with depth in mind

Photo shots with obvious depth are what is most desirable in 3D. So look for scenes where there is something or someone in the foreground and in the mid ground and in the far ground and into the distance so that the 3D depth effect is most powerful. For example, observe the composition of this scene....

Notice the setting stretches way off into the distance and the 3D effect is very good all the way there. The car in the foreground makes this all happen in this shot.

Here's another example of this where the fence really gets the depth effect going....

And finally, here's an example of good 3D depth in a smaller enclosed area where the objects on the left and the right lead the eyes to the cook in the center and then on past him to the objects on the back wall of the kitchen....

Extending things out from the screen

The following are some shots of things that appear to come right out of the screen in their anglyph versions viewed through red - cyan glasses but they do not appear to come out in the Piku - Piku versions.

These photos show this difference in the 2 technologies. Also, in the Piku - Piku photo below the right side post appears as it goes in and out of the shot but it doesn't even appear in the anaglyph version. This is one of the kinds of partial photo distortion that are still in the Piku - Piku display process. Hopefully, the inventor will soon improve this minor flaw.

Notice in this nice shot the capture of the  lady's beautiful smile and also the bag being extended by her appears to come right out of the screen.

This Piku - Piku photo below shows this gentleman extending a bottle of drinking water to the screen but its anaglyph version shows it coming right out of the screen.

 
















Color distortion because of the Use of Color Filtering Glasses

One of the flaws of the anaglyph images is that viewing them through special colored glasses will diminish some of the images colors. For instance, let's take this fire engine red convertible automobile.

Now look at it below through your red - cyan 3D glasses.

The color difference is amazing, isn't it? Instead of being a brilliant, vibrant red the car's now colored kind of a dull charcoal! This is a major flaw in using the anaglyph format for 3D images and it is one of the big reasons that it stays the POOR MAN'S 3D. Polarized 3D such as that used in the movie Avatar solves this problem but compared to anaglyph it is expensive to produce.

The Best of Both 3D Photo Display Worlds

By displaying both the Piku - Piku wiggling images and the anaglyph still images side by side (or one above the other as we are doing here), viewers can observe the better points of each format by matching their impressions of their display of the photo. A comparative analysis of them both  in a nutshell would be....

....the anaglyph images advantages are that they can be expanded to full screen and they show really good layers of depth but their disadvantages are that viewers need special glasses to focus and view them with some shots showing things as though they are cardboard cut-outs standing in the scene with their faces jutting out. Also, some of the photo's colors (especially red) can be lost or dimmed.

....the Piku - Piku images advantages are that without any need of glasses, you can see a lot of the photo's 3D effect and all of its colors display very well but their disadvantages are that their depth display is limited and as they twitch, sometimes things distort slightly within them. Also, viewers cannot expand them to full screen.

Please proceed to May's #4 post linked in our left margin Archive.