[edited] Parallel cameras - question about convergence?
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Hi folks,
meanwhile I've managed to couple two webcams with the Rift by using Willow Garage's ROS, the oculus_driver by OTL (GitHub project), the usb_cam node... however, before I get lost in details, let's just say I've managed to present appropriately distorted pictures of the webcams on the Rift. It works. Well, somehow. There's one issue that I'd like to discuss, that I need help with. Otherwise I wouldn't have to write this post (I could have anyways just to keep you informed about my progress)...
I'm babbling, so long story kind of short...
The two cameras are mostly identical. ROS rectifies the raw images of the two cameras and distorts the rectified images for the Rift. But there's a problem: the pictures don't overlap. It's like squinting to the outside... reverse squinting... call it whatever you like... the cameras are mounted to the carrier unit so that their fixpoints on the horizon have the same distance as the cameras, their lines of view are parallel, they never cross.
I can solve the problem of not overlapping images by turning the cameras towards each other and kind of fixate a specific point which then perfectly overlaps in the images and is visible in perfect 3D. But that is only valid for the objects at the fixpoint.
So, the question actually is: how do games solve this problem that only a point at a certain distance from the player (where the lines of view of the two cameras cross) overlaps in a way our brains can use to make it appear in 3D and the objects between the player and the fixpoint respectively the fixpoint and the horizon appear doubled? The Rift does not provide any information about eye movement. I cannot mechanically move the cameras to always fixate to the object the user is just looking at.
I hope I could explain my problem understandably. It's a bit difficult... for illustration purposes I've added two pictures (hopefully) showing what I mean...
Can anybody tell me what I'd have to do with the pictures of the cameras to solve this issue?
//edit 1: found out that the actual term for this apparently is convergence. To me it looks like the two distorted pictures are simply too far apart. I seem to have some kind of horizontal offset. Can this be caused by a difference between the camera's FOV and the FOV of the Oculus Rift? The two cameras that I use definitely have a different FOV.
Thanks a lot!
Cheers,
Hendrik
meanwhile I've managed to couple two webcams with the Rift by using Willow Garage's ROS, the oculus_driver by OTL (GitHub project), the usb_cam node... however, before I get lost in details, let's just say I've managed to present appropriately distorted pictures of the webcams on the Rift. It works. Well, somehow. There's one issue that I'd like to discuss, that I need help with. Otherwise I wouldn't have to write this post (I could have anyways just to keep you informed about my progress)...
I'm babbling, so long story kind of short...
The two cameras are mostly identical. ROS rectifies the raw images of the two cameras and distorts the rectified images for the Rift. But there's a problem: the pictures don't overlap. It's like squinting to the outside... reverse squinting... call it whatever you like... the cameras are mounted to the carrier unit so that their fixpoints on the horizon have the same distance as the cameras, their lines of view are parallel, they never cross.
I can solve the problem of not overlapping images by turning the cameras towards each other and kind of fixate a specific point which then perfectly overlaps in the images and is visible in perfect 3D. But that is only valid for the objects at the fixpoint.
So, the question actually is: how do games solve this problem that only a point at a certain distance from the player (where the lines of view of the two cameras cross) overlaps in a way our brains can use to make it appear in 3D and the objects between the player and the fixpoint respectively the fixpoint and the horizon appear doubled? The Rift does not provide any information about eye movement. I cannot mechanically move the cameras to always fixate to the object the user is just looking at.
I hope I could explain my problem understandably. It's a bit difficult... for illustration purposes I've added two pictures (hopefully) showing what I mean...
Can anybody tell me what I'd have to do with the pictures of the cameras to solve this issue?
//edit 1: found out that the actual term for this apparently is convergence. To me it looks like the two distorted pictures are simply too far apart. I seem to have some kind of horizontal offset. Can this be caused by a difference between the camera's FOV and the FOV of the Oculus Rift? The two cameras that I use definitely have a different FOV.
Thanks a lot!
Cheers,
Hendrik