Taking the Pictures with a Video Camera

Using a Video Camera

Equipment
In order to take 3D's with a video camera, and view them on a computer, you will need the following equipment/software:

Video camera- Any will do- I use a JVC VHS-C type camera, but 8mm, or even the older cameras will work just fine.
Video capture card- Most TV Tuner cards will work, as will cards like those from Snappy
Video editting software- You need software that will allow you to extract individual frames from the resulting .AVI files

Film
Since there are fewer differences in video tapes than in film, I'll only say that you should use a higher grade tape (I use JVC EHG Hi-Fi tape), and tape at the fastest speed (and hence, the highest quality). On video, you are going to suffer in quality compared to film. Until HDTV-compatible VCR's are commonplace, the quality is low and the usable picture size you will be able to recover will be small. I have not personally used the newer digital video cameras, so I am not able to comment on them at this time.

Technique

The basic techniques for taking 3D's with a video camera are the same as for using a camera (see Taking the Pictures with a Camera), just the recording equipment is different.

Pick a standard starting point (I always start on the left), aim the camera at the subject, and then while filming, step to the right (in my case), keeping your eye on the subject. You must be careful not to run into anything or anybody, and you must be mindful if anybody gets in the field of view, as is often the case in busy museums, such as the Louvre.

The hard part comes when you get home. Plug your camera in near your computer, and connect the video out of your camera (this will vary from camera to camera) to your TV/Video card on the back of your computer (or other device if it is located elsewhere). If possible, use the S-Video connections, because the quality of the signal will be higher.

Launch the software that came with that TV/Video card, and select your video input source as appropriate (again this varies). Start playing your tape, and when you get near the desired sequence, start capturing the video to the hard drive of your computer. Keep in mind that you will likely need at least hundred megabytes free even for just a couple of short video sequences.

Once you have captured the file, you will need some special software, such as Adobe Premiere, or Ulead Video Studio. I am still looking for some good software that will simply let you grab images from AVI files. The above two are more designed for video production, and as such, are overkill.

Load the AVI file into your selected software, and then figure out how to grab the frames one by one as you slide the player button forward through your video. You should be able to grab two frames, which make up your left and right images. Once you have those, you can just load them individually into a "normal" image editor and place them side by side to view them. Make sure to put the right photo on the left, and vice versa, if you are viewing using the cross-eyed format. You may prefer, as I do, to create a new larger image with a black background, and paste each image onto that background so that you have a single picture for viewing.

This technique is new to me, and as I improve it, I will update this site with the latest.

3D Movies
It is possible, if you are consistently level while shooting, and have carefully chosen subject material, to create a 3D movie from a single video source. If you launch the movie in the movie player twice (Quicktime or Windows Media Player), start the player that corresponds to the eye in the direction you were moving when you shot the video, and then 1-2 seconds later (depending a lot on what you were videotaping and how fast you were moving), start the other player, you can view a 3D movie of the subject.

If you were able to take a long distance pan of a downtown of a city, a semi-static scene, with no foreground objects to stray into the fields of view, and if that pan were stable vertically, you could have a virtual 3D model of that downtown on your desktop.


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