Another day, another Avatar story. This time, fxguide sits down with a few of the companies that developed the technology that helped to bring us Avatar and what we can expect to trickle down into future tools.
Prior to Avatar the assumption had been that Ocula would be needed to address the camera keystoning that occurs when you have two cameras converged (pointed in on each other or ‘toe in’ as it is sometimes referred to). Simple converging of the two viewing pyramids of each camera which are at a slight angle to each other will result in an image plane where the left eye is a bit taller on left of frame and the right eye is a bit taller on the right. Imagine projecting two video projectors at a wall – if you moved one to the left and one to the right and yet pointed them both at the same centre point – you’d expect cornerstoning on each image. Of course this means, on paper anyway, that the sides of any stereo production filmed using the Converged or ‘toe in’technique, will have poor alignment at the edges.
via fxguide – vfx blog – The Tech Behind the Tools of Avatar Part 1: Ocula.
