SONY 3D.

[Neil B Smith]

Try putting this 3D setup on your shoulder. This is definitely NOT the future for 3D. Single image file storing 3D info (i.e. RGB-3D) using a single light-weight camera is. This type of 3D setup is dead before its got going. Think again anyone whoever thinks you need 2 cameras to shoot 3d. New technology is coming.



I think 3D can be stored in to a single file. Instead of an alpha channel replace it with a 3D depth channel. I use 3ds max to create depth maps all the time then use them in After Effects to create the DOF I want, easier and faster. RED can you be the first to create such a file type??

[Neil B Smith]

3D Depth cameras are already available. Using this technology you can create a true 3d image. This is the future of 3D filming, not 2 x 2D cameras.

http://www.mesa-imaging.ch

http://www.hizook.com/blog/2010/03/2...as-emerge-2010

It seems that this type of camera is mainly being used for Games generation, but expect it to leap over to film and television production in the coming years.

[KETCH ROSSi]

Yeah ,

but don't forget that Sony also has Epic Sized camera Boxes that are currently been used with the TS-5 3Ality Rig, and those are tiny, and the Mini Zooms used in this rigs are also really tiny.

Sony does have many new cameras testing in prototype like Epic/Scarlett size, just not the same specs ;), but they don't really care, their market Nit-ch is Live S3D BroadCast.

[Neil B Smith]

Everything that is tech eventually goes tiny. Take mobile phones that needed a car battery to power them. The same will be for broadcast & film cameras. Also, as we are entering (or re-entering) the world of 3D filming the tech for 3d will go small, eventually you will have a camera with a single lens shooting 3D in the palm of your hand. Possibly at 4K or more resolution. 3D depth imaging seems the way forward in to this 3D future, not 2 separately filmed images. I don't know how far in to the future this will be, but I can see it happening.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

If you have 3ds max and post DOF then you know the horrendous artifacting that results from trying to use a depth channel to apply depth of field even with a *perfect* depth map on a single layer.

Most 3D depth sensors today are about 320x240 pixels and extremely artifacty. Even if we improve the resolution and reduce the artifacts they won't really be reliable until they can output a perfect 3D scene. If they can output a perfect 3D scene then you're effectively using performance capture anyway.

The future future is performance capture and scene scanning and then actually rendering two eyes. There are just too many artifacts and limitations to using something like even Lidar.

[Neil B Smith]

If you have 3ds max and post DOF then you know the horrendous artifacting that results from trying to use a depth channel to apply depth of field even with a *perfect* depth map on a single layer.

Most 3D depth sensors today are about 320x240 pixels and extremely artifacty. Even if we improve the resolution and reduce the artifacts they won't really be reliable until they can output a perfect 3D scene. If they can output a perfect 3D scene then you're effectively using performance capture anyway.

The future future is performance capture and scene scanning and then actually rendering two eyes. There are just too many artifacts and limitations to using something like even Lidar.

Good points. I actually use 3ds max and know the limitations of Depth maps. 3ds max doesn't do a great job in creating a Depth map but it gives you great control over focus when using either After Effects or Combustion. It saves you from re-rendering the images if the Depth-of-field isn't the way the client wants. I believe it all comes down to how software evaluates the Depth map. After Effects would just blur the image as a 2D image rather than translating in to a 3D image (relief image), then applying depth-of-field blur. Maybe rather than a greyscale image you may need to store per pixel info of Depth. i.e. 800,450,175,50,225..... in a scanline process. You can therefore increase the accuracy beyond the 0-255 limit of a greyscale image, say increasing it to 0-999.

Lidar is an excellent example, thanks for sharing. Its very new tech, just see the possibilities for video and film work.

Getting back to video...
I do believe the technology for Depth map censors are only in their infantcy. Look at TV in the 1920's and look how its today. Now leap a few decades in to the future and see where things will be then. Its just going to be time before it happens.

[Gavin Greenwalt]

. 3ds max doesn't do a great job in creating a Depth map but it gives you great control over focus when using either After Effects or Combustion.

Great control and almost always pretty lousy results from a single layer rendered (which is all you would get from a camera)

Spitting out a single render and applying DOF only works when nothing is occluding anything else to any significant degree.

Similarly if you took a single camera and projected it back onto 3D geometry you then have to *create* everything that the second eye couldn't see that was occluded. The most extreme example would be where one eye sees nothing but fence post and the other eye sees everything else. If your camera only sees fence post your depth map will just see fence post.

You would get horrendous artifacting:


(Super quick and dirty mocked up crossed-eye stereo example rendering.) Aka... cross your eyes to view it.

And that's a "best case scenario" of managing to somehow magically recreate the 3D scene perfectly. With just a depth map it would be 'displaced' and you would have 'smearing' of the 3D geometry.

[Bruce Allen]

This is not a good representation of SONY 3D.

Pace Fusion is a better example. Eg Steadicam. Eg Avatar.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Alex G. Cohn]

How do you plan on displaying your 3D Depth images?

Short of building some sort of holographic display, it seems like the images would have to rendered out to double-image Stereoscopic 3D in order to be watched.

In which case, you might as well record Stereoscopic.

Plus, your method can't create an true 3D image, because the camera would only be capturing a single perspective.

The 3D effect, by its very nature, is created by combining two different perspectives of an object.

[Mark Collins]

SI-3D rig? Epic 3D rig?

The Sony camera's are large for sure, but you don't necessarily need camera's that large. I remember seeing some set photo's of Avatar where Cameron was going shoulder mount on the Pace system easily enough. Granted it's huge, but as long as the balance is there you're fine.

There's also system's such as the steadicam and the steadi-segway to use beamsplitter rigs with.