The recent success of stereoscopic-3D Cinema has been enabled by the latest advancements in digital imaging technology. ‘Native’ stereo-3D capture has become increasingly easier and more familiar to the filmmaking community; but so has the economic, technical and artistic viability of converting new or existing 2D to 3D.

The discussion on whether to prefer “native capture” or “conversion” has been a key debate in 3D-Cinema’s contemporary existence. Today, with the vast availability of 3D projection screens, the discussion is as relevant to the filmmaker as ever: Should I shoot a shot or entire film native 3D? Should I convert from 2D? Should I shoot in 2D aiming to convert to 3D? What are my options? What do options mean? What does 2D to 3D Conversion involve?

Hugh Murray and Paul Judkins of IMAX; James Elder of York University and Carlos Vazquez of Canada’s Communications Research Centre (CRC); Roy Anthony of Christie Digital Inc., Rob Burton of Arc Productions Inc., James Stewart of Geneva Films and Eric Deren of Dzignlight Studios present and discuss these matters at Toronto’s York University on March 26, 2013, 1:30 PM EST.

For colleagues unable to be present due to travel and distance considerations the workshop is also going to be webcasted, live, in 2D/HD. (*)
For further information and registration details please visit: http://2d-3d.eventbrite.ca/

See you at the Workshop!

(*) Third party recordings and/or public dissemination of the workshop’s live webcast are strictly forbidden without the prior consent of the workshop organizers and/or individual presenters.

http://www.reelasian.com/index.php/industry/about-the-industry-series

Ali Kazimi, professor in Department of Film in the Faculty of Fine Arts, received funding from the CFI to develop a state-of-the-art Stereoscopic 3D Lab @ York. The funding will allow Kazimi to augment and build upon the core of the stereoscopic research based production and post-production facility that has emerged out of the 3D FLIC (Film Innovation Consortium) project. S3DL @ York will become the first dedicated facility of its type in Canada, enabling the study of stereoscopic 3D story-telling practices, their production and distribution, combined with insights and best practices gleaned from stringent psycho-physical tests and experimentation. S3DL will meld art and science in the best tradition of inter-disciplinary research, enabling one to push the boundaries of the knowledge generated by the other and vice versa in a deliberate, complementary and interactive way. Kazimi will work with researchers Laurie Wilcox and Rob Allison from York’s Centre for Vision Research on this project. Excerpted and edited from http://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2012/10/16/cfi-awards-york-researchers-more-than-592000-in-research-infrastructure/

The portal was launched Wed. March 28, 2012 at an event held at the Design Exchange.

Crosstalk remains an important determinant of S3D image quality. Defined as the leakage of one eye’s image into the image of the other eye crosstalk affects all commercially available stereoscopic viewing systems. It is well established that crosstalk decreases perceived image quality and causes image distortion (Seuntiens et al. 2005, Wilcox & Stewart, 2002). Moreover, visual comfort decreases and perceived workload increases with increasing crosstalk (Kooi and Toet, 2004; Lambooij, 2010; Pala et al. 2007).  In a series of experiments we have shown that crosstalk also affects perceived depth magnitude (Tsirlin et al. 2011a; Tsirlin et al. 2011b). In our previous experiments we used two white bars on a black background, and measured the perceived depth between the bars as a function of disparity and degree of crosstalk.  The data showed that as crosstalk increased perceived depth decreased. This effect was intensified for larger disparities. We found the effect was present regardless of whether the ghost image was spatially separated from, or overlapped with, the original image. The experiments described here extend our previous work to complex images of natural scenes.

We controlled crosstalk levels by simulating them in images presented on a zero-crosstalk mirror stereoscope display. The stimulus was a color image of our laboratory that showed a cluttered scene composed of furniture and objects. The observers were asked to estimate the amount of stereoscopic depth between pairs of objects in the scene. We used two different estimation methods – a virtual measurement scale and a disparity probe. Data show that, as was the case with simple line stimuli, depth in this natural scene was dramatically affected by crosstalk. As crosstalk increased perceived depth decreased; an effect that grew with increasing disparity. Interestingly, observers overestimated the depth in displays that contained no crosstalk. We propose that this overestimation is the result of the presence of pictorial cues to depth (perspective, texture gradients etc.) and familiarity with the real size of the objects depicted in the image. This hypothesis was confirmed by a control experiment where observers estimated depth in the same natural scene presented in 2D instead of S3D. Although there was no stereoscopic depth in this case, observers still perceived some depth between object pairs. Some observers spontaneously reported nausea and headaches after performing the task in S3D, which confirms previous findings that crosstalk causes discomfort in viewers (Kooi and Toet, 2004).  Taken together these results show that our previous findings generalize to natural scenes showing that crosstalk affects perceived depth magnitude even in the presence of pictorial depth cues.  Our data underscore the fact that crosstalk is a serious challenge to the quality of S3D media and has to be carefully addressed by display manufacturers.