classilla / camaglyph

3D's not dead.

Camaglyph

Copyright (C) 2020 Cameron Kaiser. All rights reserved.
Distributed under the Floodgap Free Software License.
[e-mail]

Camaglyph is a tool for generating anaglyph images from twinned webcams, like the Minoru 3D device. It supports generating optimized anaglyphs and Dubois anaglyphs for standard red-cyan glasses, and can emit interlaced images (L-R or R-L) for passive 3D monitors using alternating polarization. It can also save PPM images to disk and can emit frames to a V4L2-compliant virtual camera system like akvcam (a sample akvcam.ini is included) so that you can use your webcam as, you know, a webcam.

SDL 1.2 and V4L2 are required for the Linux build (the only supported version right now). It is tested on ppc64le, but should work on most platforms, including 32-bit and big-endian. It runs entirely within userspace.

This tool is preconfigured to support the Minoru 3D webcam, which is two 640x480 UVC webcams in one unit. By default these appear at /dev/video2 (left) and /dev/video0 (right) on Linux systems with V4L2.

Build and usage instructions

1. Edit camag.h if you want different resolutions or frame rates. Virtually every recent webcam should offer 640x480 @30fps, which is how Camaglyph is configured out of the tin, so verify this works first. If you are not sure what your camera(s) support, use a command like

   v4l2-ctl --list-formats-ext -d /dev/videoX

   (where /dev/videoX is the device in question) to show configurations available. Camaglyph expects both cameras to use the same resolution and frame rate, whatever is specified.

2. Adjust the Makefile if necessary for your desired compiler and flags. gcc 4.0.1+ is supported.

3. make

4. Connect your camera(s). If your cameras appear at /dev/video2 (left eye) and /dev/video0 (right eye), which is the default for a Minoru 3D, you can just type

   ./camag

   Otherwise, specify left and right, e.g.:

   ./camag /dev/video2 /dev/video0

5. The monitor window will appear showing the anaglyph. While video is being displayed, you can press:

   A - change display algorithm (defaults to Optimized Anaglyph [faster]; cycles through Optimized Anaglyph, Dubois [poorer reds but higher quality], Interlaced (R-L) and Interlaced (L-R)). The interlaced modes are intended for passive LCD 3D monitors. My Mitsubishi Diamondcrysta RDT233WX-3D is R-L interlaced.

   S - take a snapshot (to outXXXXX.ppm in the current directory; XXXXX is automatically incremented). Note that interlaced snapshots may need to be corrected manually or moved to the correct Y-position onscreen to match the 3D display's polarization order.

   Q - quit (or close the window)

6. If you have a V4L2-compliant virtual camera system like akvcam enabled, pass a third parameter for where the output should be emitted, e.g.:

   ./camag /dev/video2 /dev/video0 /dev/video4

   If you use the provided akvcam.ini, then VLC, Firefox, etc., can view the provided capture stream (on my system, /dev/video4 is the output and /dev/video5 is what consumer applications connect to), which can be used for video chat and other features. Note that on slower systems this may reduce the frame rate somewhat, and interlaced modes may not display properly if they are not moved to the correct Y-position onscreen to match the 3D display's polarization order.

To-do

1. Support SDL 2.0.

2. Support Mac OS X (probably PowerPC systems first because I'm that difficult, hence SDL 1.2 support) using QuickTime or QTKit. I've attempted to be modular so that other video backends can be swapped in relatively easily.

3. Automatic camera resolution detection (or specify it on the command line).

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