Kartaverse Improved Dual Fisheye Workflows

[Andrew Hazelden]

A new Kartaverse node called "kvrCropStereo" is now available for Blackmagic Design's Resolve/Fusion software. You can download the fuse using the Reactor Package Manager. You will find the tool in Reactor's "Kartaverse/KartaVP" category on the left sidebar.

The "kvrCropStereo" node allows you to re-crop stereo 3D imagery with individual control over the left and right eye views. This is great for "dual fisheye" lens based live-action 180VR/360VR stitching workflows.

The node can also do per-eye rotation corrections to adjust for camera body positioning on a tripod with presets for 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° image orientations.

This node makes quick work of 180VR to 360VR stereo 3D frame size conversions by padding out the empty area. You can also go back and forth between 360VR (360°x180°) to cropped down 180VR (180°x180°) output as well.

Special thanks go out to Hugh Hou for the sample Canon dual fisheye 180VR footage used in the included Fusion .comp example.

Regards,

Andrew Hazelden

Kartaverse Developer

[Andrew Hazelden]

I added a new Kartaverse 5.7 release to Reactor today. 🎄🎁

Included with this update is a new "Dual Fisheye Stitching Comp" Atom Package. The example comps process dual fisheye media from Samsung Gear360 and Ricoh Theta cameras into a monoscopic 2D LatLong output. The included kvrDualFisheye effects template works with footage from a dual circular fisheye lens camera. It expects footage that has a pair of front and back circular fisheye lens images merged into the same frame layout. The default settings for the macro have been tuned for a Samsung Gear360 camera.

Effects Template Usage
In the Resolve Edit page, the "kvrDualFisheye" macro can then be dragged from the Effects Library "Effects > KartaVP > Warp" category onto a clip in the timeline. Select the clip and then open the Inspector view to adjust the parameters using the "Effects > Fusion > kvrDualFisheye" item.

In the inspector view, if you click the little magic wand icon next to the right of the heading "kvrDualFisheye" you can hop into the Fusion page to customize the macro node. Double clicking on the "kvrDualFisheye" node in the Fusion page allows you to expand the group to access the nodes that are stored inside the group object.

Special thanks to Ringo Yip for the sample "Samsung Gear 360" footage used in the above screenshot.

[Andrew Hazelden]

The Kartaverse "Dual Fisheye" atom package was updated in the Reactor package manager to include example comps that support a wider range of 360VR camera models:

- Ricoh Theta (Original)
- Samsung Gear 360
- Yi 360 VR

The examples stitch together footage from dual circular fisheye lens cameras. This type of footage has a pair of front and back circular fisheye lens images merged into the same frame layout. The output is a monoscopic 360° panorama. The Kartaverse kvrViewer node is then used to explore the stitched footage and reframe it with an overcapture effect.

These .comp project files are located on disk at:

"Reactor:/Deploy/Comps/Kartaverse/WarpStitch/Dual Fisheye/"

Dual Fisheye Workflow Screeenshots
Reactor Package Manager - "Kartaverse/KartaVP/KartaVP Example | Dual Fisheye" atom package.

This screenshot shows "Ricoh Theta" (original model) dual fisheye camera footage. Imagery provided by Alex Lam.

This screenshot shows "Samsung Gear 360" dual fisheye camera footage. Imagery provided by Ringo Yip.

These screenshots show "Yi 360 VR" dual fisheye camera footage.

Note: Would you like examples to be included from more dual fisheye cameras? If yes, simply send me an unstitched JPEG image at full resolution from the 360VR camera model you have, and I will prepare a new example comp.