Look on my more updated WWW dedicated

to the same problematic:

stereopcvideo.html

 Overview:

I am an scientist, sometimes forced to show my students very strange things like electron densities, force fields e.t.c. . To show such thing in 3D stereo movies should be nice. I have found commercial software for this purpose too expensive or non-existing, therefore I have written stereo mpeg encoder for several formats and an stereo mpeg player as well.

Futures :

 encoder

• input of series of tga images calculated from 2 different view (from 3D Studio MAX, POVRAY, Caligary Truespace …)
• conversion to relaxed eye, above/below format, above/below format with horizontal scratching
• input and encoding of non stereo format as well
• mpeg 1, mpeg 2 adjustable compression based on algorithm from www.mpeg.org
• support movies up to 800x600 resolution
• sorry, no audio up to now

• support input in relaxed eye and scratched above/below format
• fast mpeg 1/2 decompression P II optimized, MMX in the future
• non stereo mpeg support as well
• stereo output in anaglyph and HW page swapped format, HW page swapping is provided via OpenGL drivers of the card, you will need an graphic card with OpenGL stereo support like Fire GL 1000 Pro (under NT 4) and LCD glasses with DIN3 connector

Operating systems supported:

WIN 95, NT 4 – the encoder and player works for both systems, the player’s HW page swapping mode availability will depends on your graphic card drivers ( I know about OpenGL stereo drivers for NT 4 only)

Other systems (E-mail me for bin and sources, it is under development)

IRIX – encoder is written in pure C – it works O.K., an modified version of player without Microsoft MFC is tested as well. It use GLUT OpenGL lib. The SGI hardware is very good equipped for stereo modes, but a bit slow for decoding.

LINUX – similar situation as IRIX, the trouble is in lack of stereo OpenGL capable drivers for existing cards …
 
 

Download:

encoder v 1.0 1999 – WIN 95/NT4 exe file +doc +practical example of stereo coding (from 3D Studio MAX) encoder

player v 1.0 1999 – WIN 95/NT4 exe file + doc GLSMpegPlayer
 
 

Sample screenshot of supported stereo formats:

This samples are based on examples from 3D Studio MAX 1 character animation plugin.

Relaxed eye format:

Advantage: No lose of quality. It is possible to watch the stereo effect by relaxed-eye techniques

Disadvantage: Huge amount of data witch have negative influence of speed of decoding. It use non-standard mpeg format and therefor could not be played by non-universal mpeg player like Microsoft ActiveMovie or Direct Show.

Above/Below format (non-scratched):

Advantage: No lose of quality. It is possible to play it , when stretched to full screen by the help of HW sync doubling. A bit more easy stereo decoding.

Disadvantage: Huge amount of data. Difficult to watch stereo effect. Use non-standard mpeg format.
 
 

Above/Below stretched :

Advantage: It can use standard MPEG 1/2 format. 2 times quicker decompression then 2 previous format. Possible to play in stereo by the help of HW sync doubling. This format could be usually played by standard MPEG decoders like Power DVD or Microsoft Active Movie with really optimized decoding routines.

Disadvantage: Lose of quality in vertical direction. Impossible to see the stereo effect without spec HW.

Examples of stereo output format:

Anaglyph:

The player can convert mpeg stereo files to anaglyph on the fly.
 
 

Above/Below stretched - > HW page flipped conversion:

This image illustrate how is the picture crippled when the conversion from stretched above/below format to HW page swapped is done.

Rotating molecule (above/below scretched format)

Orck Olaf (relaxed eye format, mpeg 1)

Dancing bayby (relaxed eye format, mpeg 1)

I have produce more animation like the rose in the beginig of this page, but my www space is limited. I can send you som more, if you E-mail me.

Michal Husak

husakm@vscht.cz