My Gopro 3+ Black 180 degree stereo rig

Gopro recently released a new firmware version for 3+ Black -- with big enhancements in Protune including +/- EV controls. Which is good news. But the bad news is, according to the Gopro User forums, it is bricking some user cameras so they have withdrawn it for the time being.

But to get back to good news .... that the firmware adds commands in the internal scripting language for the cameras that refer to 3d Backpacs for the camera i.e. an official Gopro solution for 3d syncing for Gopro 3+ Black
https://gist.github.com/KonradIT/9494326

Also there are USB control features in the new script commands -- so things are looking brighter for panoramic 3d Gopro solutions for the Rift

Hi, that github also very resourceful in manipulating the autoexec script, and I've asked Konrad to try making a HDR script for photo (https://github.com/KonradIT/autoexechack/tree/GoPro/HDRPhoto) which help taking fisheye shot alot. btw, are there any update to the hero 3 black 3D script? thx

I notice Letus is making an anamorphic adapter for Gopro 3/3+ now which gives you wider coverage (for $200). You can adapt the case or clamp it directly to the Gopro lens (with an accessory clamp Letus sell). As well as giving an anamorphic stretch (which needs to tweaked in Gopro Studio for best pictorial results) it gives considerably wider horizontal coverage.
http://letusdirect.com/cart/anamorphx-gp.html
This is meant to be used horizontally but you could orient it vertically and get wider vertical coverage I think, making it a better option maybe for Rift lookaround videos.
Also the clamp looks nicely made
http://letusdirect.com/cart/anamorphx-gopro-lens-clamp.html -- a useful thing if you are into making customs lens shades for Gopros. Or you could find a small regular fisheye convertor, attach it to the clamp and put it on your Gopro to get circular 180 coverage without hacking your camera. Since the original Gopro 3+ lens is very excellent quality, with a quality fisheye adapter you still might get very good quality with the combination.

Here is a new 180 3d video (of a political protest on a very wet day).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/767c38i1a8ss6k1/protestsbs.mp4

In VR Player

Media/Format .... Side by Side
Projection ... Dome
Device/Layout ... Cross-eyed
Tools/Settings/Display ... Horizontal Offset -42

I am very happy with this one because I have worked out a way of getting better vertical alignment and it makes the depth much better in the nadir and zenith.

PTGui Pro which I use for camera calibration and alignment, and format conversion, does a pretty good job ... but it lacks a feature in an early stitching program .. viz. "morph to fit" . But it will do it if you install the earlier program as a sort of a plugin.
http://www.ptgui.com/ptguihelp/main_panoramaparams.htm
You need to install PTStitcher and PTOptimizer and point to them in the Options in PTGui.
http://www.ptgui.com/panotools.html
Load your aligned equi L/R first frames into PTGui
Set Image type to Rectilinear, fov 100/100 (I know this is not right, but it is a hack to make it work)
Set Panorama type to Rectilinear, fov 105/100
Set Optimizer to PTOptimizer.
Set Stitcher to PTStitcher
Set "morph to fit" to all control points in the Panorama tab
Generate control points
Select all control points in the Control point table and change type to Horizontal . (this is the salient bit, it forces all the L/R control point pair components to have equal height in the adjusted image pair)
In the Optimizer tab optimize only the Yaw of the R image
Delete outliers in the control points. Optimize again.
Delete the L image and add all the rest of the R images and set the parameters to be identical to the first R image.
Export as individual layers.

(I know this is greek to all but panorama freaks but it is the only way I have found to get perfect vertical alignment with equi stereo video with Gopro footage)

Btw for depth map extraction to be high quality vertical alignment is important I think.

Google's Trekker Street View camera -- I photographed it last week with my rig in an industrial location
http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/217okq/googles_trekker_portable_street_view_rig_in/

The article I link to there says 15 cameras -- there is probably not a a lot of overlap but if they used wider lenses you could use this sort of setup for stereo capture too.

Btw -- this is an interesting thing -- a Gopro tracker sensor device
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gon-feel-for-gopro-camera-share-gps-motion-physics-onto-your-hd-sport-videos
-- you would need a third Gopro to use it with a stereo rig. Tracks orientation among other things. You could use to post-stabilize Gopro footage very accurately. I am starting to think mobile cameras will work fine with the Rift if they are steady enough.

Does this type of setup enable you to "look around" within the panoramic video, using the rift? Would it be possible to do this during a live video feed?

The new Dual Hero sync cable for hero3 black will be out soon. Looking forward to modify for multiple gopro sync

"jonfaiella" wrote:
Does this type of setup enable you to "look around" within the panoramic video, using the rift? Would it be possible to do this during a live video feed?

Yes you can "look around" and ("up and down") in 180 3d movies in the Rift (in VR Player) . Actually you might not want to look around particularly but just the freedom to have headtracking not run out of image is immersive.

... "live video feed" ...I dont know if there is a Player that can do that yet. VR Player can stream from an url but the latency is high. I suspect you might be able to do it soon in Firebox VRWeb.

hey mediavr just curious if you've continued to work on this in the past month - the newest version of PtGui has a whole lot more controls than what i could figure out from what u wrote above and im struggling to get anything to look as good as that protest you posted.

let me know if there is anyway way you'd be down to talk more specifics about it - tryin to do some cool stuff now :D

If I may ask a question. What do you guys suggest if I want to make 3d videos for the vrcinema in terms of placement, horizontal or vertical? And can I seperate the camera's more than the human eye, or will that result in a strange depth feeling?