Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
3D Camera adds depth to your iPhone photography
3D photo apps are not new to the iPhone platform, but a new app from Juicy Bits looks promising in terms of making those pictures with depth a lot easier to take and view.3D Camera 1.1 [US$1.99, click opens iTunes] is now available for iPhone OS 2.2 and 3.0 devices, and it lets you take photos that use one of three methods to create the illusion of 3D: red/cyan anaglyphs that require those funky 3D glasses, stereograms that create 3D images when your eyes look at them a certain way, and wiggle stereograms (or wiggle-grams) that use animated GIF images to provide the "depth". If you need a place to buy the goofy glasses, Juicy Bits lists several sources on their website
To take the photos, you use one of two methods. If you're planning on taking an anaglyph or sterogram, you take one picture, move the iPhone camera slightly to the right, and take another photo. To make a wiggle stereogram, you point directly at the same object from two slightly different vantage points. The app provides instructions on exactly how to take the two photos each time you launch it.
How are the results? Well, I haven't tried a red/cyan anaglyph yet, but if you use "crossviewing" (crossing the eyes slightly so that the two images overlap and form a third 3D image) you should be able to see depth in the test image seen below. If you use 3D Camera or any of the other 3D photo apps for iPhone, be sure to send some of your best pics to our Flickr pool: http://www.flickr.com/groups/tuawrigs/pool/
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
glebec said 11:13AM on 6-26-2009
Um... the example you posted isn't a crossed-eye pair, it's a parallel pair. Try it and see. Apart from that, neat app!
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caleb said 12:50PM on 6-26-2009
I don't know what crossed-eye vs. parallel pair means, but when I crossed my eyes until the images overlapped I saw a 3D image.
glebec said 1:26PM on 6-26-2009
@Caleb:
Then you're either confusing crossing eyes with diverging eyes, or the "3D" image you saw was inverted, with foreground objects far away and background objects close up. Crossed-eye stereo involves crossing your eyes until the images converge, and parallel images involve diverging your eyes until the images converge. The pair posted is most definitely an example of the latter type; I can easily use both techniques and only the "parallel" viewing method yields the normal 3D image here. It's simply a question of the order of images; if you reversed the order of this pair then it would become a crossed-eye pair. See http://www.jrsdesign.net/cross_parallel_viewing.html for examples. FYI, so-called "Magic Eyes" were usually parallel method, and most photo pairs posted on the web are crossed-eye method (but again, the photos in this article are of the parallel variety).
James said 11:23AM on 6-26-2009
3DeeCamera has this as well and is a little cheaper...it also does automatic alignment and has an overlay when you're taking your second picture which is pretty helpful.
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emil said 11:23AM on 6-26-2009
Ugh, it would be nice if the cross-eyed ones were a little closer together, my eyes hurt now.
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Matthew Snodgrass said 11:48AM on 6-26-2009
Who's going to outfit a second camera on the back of the iPhone to get real-time 3D? Perhaps it'll be the iPhone 3D S.
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jasonhsewell said 11:58AM on 6-26-2009
Actually, the test image you show isn't of the "cross-eyed" variety. It requires parallel viewing, where the left eye looks at the left image, and the right eye looks at the right image. And that's fine with me, because I find that method much easier than the cross-eye method.
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Jimmi Rehman said 12:10PM on 6-26-2009
whether this app functions properly and successfully or not, this article on the app just made this developer tons of money.
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mariagrafs said 12:25PM on 6-26-2009
With Juicy Bits app the photos are looking more brighter. I will take some pictures and will send to Flickr.
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gabriel.m.sharp said 12:39PM on 6-26-2009
Just bought the app. Works really well.
Have demo shots if you want.3
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MGough said 1:20PM on 6-26-2009
Thanks for the nice review, Steven. For anyone who is interested, we already have version 1.2 in development, and it includes some frequently requested features:
* Ability to use your finger to re-align images after they’ve been taken
* Ability to control or eliminate the “black bar” between the left and right stereogram images
* Ability to save/send wigglegram animations
* Ability to take advantage of the increased camera resolution on the iPhone 3GS models
* Ability to upload directly to Flickr
Last, our FAQ has a lot of 3D photo tips and links to geeky articles for anyone who wants to dive in: http://www.juicybitssoftware.com/faq/
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bward74 said 3:00PM on 6-26-2009
Uploaded my 3D piccy of a toy fire engine to the tuaw Flickr pool. Works a treat!
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richard said 3:24PM on 6-26-2009
It's a sailboat!
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allonblack said 3:19PM on 6-27-2009
It's not a sailboat, it's a scooner dumbass!
nvidia2008 said 5:51AM on 6-27-2009
I can do Parallel viewing in http://www.jrsdesign.net/cross_parallel_viewing.html but can't do the cross-eyed.
Bummer.
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carbonadam said 11:39AM on 6-27-2009
I love this program for the iphone. I have no problem merging the images by myself and for those that can not there is the traditional red/blue feature too.
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MGough said 6:31PM on 6-28-2009
Thought everyone would appreciate our first test of upcoming functionality in version 1.2: http://www.twitpic.com/8pcyn
The images were re-aligned by dragging them with a finger, then the wigglegram was uploaded as an animation to Twitpic. The 1.2 update will be submitted to Apple soon, and of course, it'll be free to all current owners.
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bward74 said 7:35AM on 7-01-2009
I have written my own review on the iPhoneography website here:
http://www.iphoneography.com/journal/2009/7/1/iphone-app-review-3d-camera-by-barry-ward.html
I hope it's ok to post the link.
europanorama said 10:08AM on 7-14-2009
it is unwise to show us an parallel 3dstereo with extended stereobase (suitable for lenticular use). i would show a cross-eye-image converted to the right stereobase.
if only double-view or schillr 3dviewer would already be supported in FF 3.5. these add-ons can quickly convert 3dstereo-formats, with schillr to have more options.
look at my 3dstereo-aeropanorama plus marspanoramas in 3stereo-all freeviewing plus anaglyph. parallel/cross/anaglyph
www.europanorama.tk
www.europanorama.ch.vu
www.3dpanimages.tk
all the same
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MGough said 3:10AM on 8-16-2009
Thought everyone would like to know that 3D Camera 1.2 was finally approved by Apple and released to the App Store: http://bit.ly/3dcamera. We also released a Lite version since this review was posted. Enjoy!
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