Mobile Device Controlled Semiautomatic Stereoscopic Camera Rig

Abstract

In recent years, a number of three dimensional (3D) videos that have been produced is significantly increasing following the demands of 3D consumers. This kind of situation cannot be apart from massive improvement of 3D video technology to reduce any uncomfortable viewing conditions which can cause a problem such as eyestrain or visual cyber sickness to the human visual system of the viewers. However, from the process of the 3D production point of view, the 3D video capture process is still considerably cumbersome and time-consuming. In this study, a stereoscopic camera technique for the 3D video capture is used. In this system, our focus is on the camera positioning control in order to obtain the correct position for every single scene captured. Moreover, to keep the 3D video capture process simple and less time-consuming, the semiautomatic algorithm is implemented. In semiautomatic stereoscopic camera rig system, both positions of the cameras are determined on the basis of interaxial distance and convergence angle calculation in each video scene. The interaxial distance and convergence angle of the cameras can be calculated on the basis of the distances of the observed objects. There are three object distances: near, far, and convergence distances. A laser range finder is utilized to easily capture those object distances. A mobile device is used as an input and controller instrument. Based on our experiments, the time required to set up the positions of the cameras is less than a minute when all parameters have been already determined and the procedure of camera positioning is more practical. The utilization of mobile device gives an advantage in term of control portability and mobility to the operator of the stereoscopic camera rig