What's new in HDR Imaging?
Releases, tech demos, rumours, papers.
One-shot panoramas
June 15, 2008Fisheye lenses are awesome in delivering pristine quality. Just got the new Sigma 4.5mm for my Nikon D200, and now I get a full pano done in 3 shots. But that's about the end of the line. Some stupid law of physics prevents lenses to show more than 180° FOV.
That's why mirror balls are still in fashion for getting these quick-and-dirty HDR environment images done. Problem with mirror balls is: they're a royal pain to handle, the shoot requires a complicated 2-tripod setup, and they have a blind spot behind them. Also, you see the photographer's reflection in the center - so that's yet another useless spot.
Students from the Linköping University have figured out a smart setup, that overcomes these problems. They cut out a hole where the photographer's reflection is, and put in a lens to picture what would have been hidden behind the mirror.
Read the full paper here.
Let's see how long it takes until this idea turns into a product. Maybe next Siggraph? Photokina?
Similar mirrorball-on-a-stick lenses are the Kaidan 360 OneVR, the 0-360 Panoramic Optic, the VRi SurroundPhoto, the EGG photo306°, but none of them are this advanced. Yet. They might work great for real estate tours on Craigslist, but for VFX work we demand it to be more awesome. According to this reference page most of these current one-shot systems are even made of plastic.
That's why mirror balls are still in fashion for getting these quick-and-dirty HDR environment images done. Problem with mirror balls is: they're a royal pain to handle, the shoot requires a complicated 2-tripod setup, and they have a blind spot behind them. Also, you see the photographer's reflection in the center - so that's yet another useless spot.
Students from the Linköping University have figured out a smart setup, that overcomes these problems. They cut out a hole where the photographer's reflection is, and put in a lens to picture what would have been hidden behind the mirror.
Read the full paper here.
Let's see how long it takes until this idea turns into a product. Maybe next Siggraph? Photokina?
Similar mirrorball-on-a-stick lenses are the Kaidan 360 OneVR, the 0-360 Panoramic Optic, the VRi SurroundPhoto, the EGG photo306°, but none of them are this advanced. Yet. They might work great for real estate tours on Craigslist, but for VFX work we demand it to be more awesome. According to this reference page most of these current one-shot systems are even made of plastic.
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June update
June 4, 2008
Been terribly busy lately, so this time the Montly sIBL is a little late.
To make up for it, I put a brand new set together for you - this time even with a little rendering as thumbnail. This is really the way a sIBL set should work.
Oh, and while restarting the Flickr Gallery I noticed that almost 500.000 photos on Flickr are tagged with "HDR". Just 10 months ago there were only 150.000, looks like HDR is really taking off. Compared to back then, it seems the average quality is on a much higher level, too....
Panoramic Video
May 27, 2008class="highslide" onclick="return hsl.expand(this, {captionId: 'immersivecam'})">
title="Click to enlarge" />Well, a company called Immersive Media did just that, and boy - it's the coolest thing I have seen in a while! Might not be high dynamic range, but certainly related cutting edge panorama technology. And I can already think of a billion applications in the visual effects industry...
Play the movie below and drag your mouse for a full surround view!
data="http://demos.immersivemedia.com/fvdemo_1/data/SphericalFlashDemos/NAB2008Demo/imcflash.swf"width="580" height="350">
They have plenty of great demos on the Immersive Media site.
Or check out the special surfer coverage on the Red Bull site!
Realviz joins the Autodesk universe
May 7, 2008
Autodesk was on a shopping tour again, and they announced today that they aquired Realviz and all their software products.
This means what was formerly known as Realviz Stitcher, is called Autodesk Stitcher from now on. If you head over to www.realviz.com, it looks like Stitcher has always been a genuine Autodesk product.
In the past, Autodesk always tried to ensure a smooth transition with a newly snatched product line. This time - not so much. There are no more student versions available, and VTour, Retimer and Matchmover are no longer available. Actually, for the next week none of the former Realviz programs is available at all, because the online store is closed.
Ohhhh, Retimer plugin for Fusion - I miss you already (in fact, just used it today). And VTour was one of those promising programs, that I haven't had a chance to write about yet...
More info in the the official press release.
All new Smart IBL in May
May 1, 2008I hate deadlines, but I wouldn't get anything done without them either.
This time it was ACM SIGGRAPH, asking for all the material for this upcoming SIGGRAPH Class. And because Smart IBL should definitely be on there, the entire sIBL team was working really hard on updating all the sIBL Loader scripts. GO TEAM!
Happy May!
This time it was ACM SIGGRAPH, asking for all the material for this upcoming SIGGRAPH Class. And because Smart IBL should definitely be on there, the entire sIBL team was working really hard on updating all the sIBL Loader scripts. GO TEAM!
So, what's new?
- sIBL-Edit is now available as Linux version, in 32 and glorious 64 bit.
- Lightwave sIBL loader has a new thumbnail view and works on Mac and PC, v9.3 and up.
- Maya sIBL loader supports mental ray production shaders and rayswitch in Maya2008.
- 3dsMAX sIBL loader works with mental ray, fixed VRay (again).
- a brand new loader for modo is about to join the ranks, stay tuned...
Happy May!
