A Fun Thing To Do
I wanted to recreate a Red–Blue 3D (Anaglyph) video capability I lost.
Many years ago I purchased a Minoru 3D Web cam back in my 16-bit Windows days.
I still have it. : )
If you have a few cameras sitting around, you can do the same thing using OBS Studio.
Here's How I Did It
The Equipment
I'm using a couple of Ubisoft cameras that operated well at 640x480. They do not have microphones. Speed and resolution are not a factor for me. They are cheap and do the job.
You will want to set them so that the center of the cameras are about 6cm apart.
And, point them at your nose as close as you can.
This take some patience and practice
Pick a meeting software and grab some images to compare, I found using two different meeting softwares, running side by side, one using the left camera and the second using the right camera, allowed to live point-tuning effectively.
When working with these cameras, you will be referencing them as if from the point of view of the eyes of the someone looking at you. The camera on the right, will be the red left eye of the person viewing you, and the camera on the left will the cyan right eye of the person viewing you.
The Software
You'll want to go to https://obsproject.com/ and download a version of OBS Studio for your system.
It's been a while since I did an initial load and configure of OBS. So I go nothing for that.
In OBS I created a Scene called RedBlue_Source
I added two sources Right_Cyan and Left_Red.And, finally, the RedBlue_Cropped scene is the final (polished?) output
Setup
Right_Cyan (the left camera)
Hit the plus (+) button (at the bottom) and choose Video Capture Device
Create New: Right_Cyan
Click OK
The Properties for Righ_Cyan will pop up.
This is what my properties look like...
I had to enable Deactivate when not showing.
I disabled Apply rotation data from the camera...
Click OK
* just a note here...
Deactivate when not showing may be needed due to the default USB drivers. Apparently, when switching scenes, a camera can get stuck on its initial frame (frozen).
Add a Cyan Tint
Right Click the Right_Cyan source, and then on Filter.
Plus button, then Color Correction.
Name: Cyan_Tint
Click OK
Click the Select Color button.
Set HTML: #00ffff (zero zero foxtrot foxtrot foxtrot foxtrot)
Click OK
Adjust the Opacity to somewhere between .5 and .7 <-- IMPORTANT ***
Adjust the other sliders to taste.
Here is what mine looks like...
Fill the screen (optional)
This is a preference, but I like my sources to fill the screen. As the canvas (the output) is by default, 1920x1080, this tiny 640x480 video feed will only fill in a small portion of the screen. To demonstrate, observe the red rectangle in the upper left corner, of this canvas (larger blue box around mostly everything. this is the default size on my video source unless I do something to it.
My Preference it to let it fill the screen. by default it will get letterboxed as needed.
Right click the source Right_Cyan > Transform > Fit to screen
Left_Red (the right camera)
These Steps are very similar to the Right_Cyan steps.
Hit the plus button (at the bottom) and choose Video Capture Device
Create New: Left_Red
Click OK
The Properties for Left_Red will pop up.
Enable Deactivate when not showing.
Disabled Apply rotation data from the camera.
Click OK
Add a Red Tint
Right Click the Left_Red source, and then on Filter.
Plus button, then Color Correction.
Name: Red_Tint
Click OK
Click the Select Color button.
Set HTML: #ff0000 (foxtrot foxtrot zero zero zero zero)
Click OK
Keep the Opacity at 1 <-- IMPORTANT ***
Adjust the other sliders to taste.
Here is what mine looks like...
Fill the screen (optional)
Only do this if you did it for the Right_Cyan source
Right click the source Left_Red > Transform > Fit to screen
Adjust the layers
Layer Order
The sources can be dragged to ordered. but with the settings described as above, you will want Right_Cyan on top, then Left_Red
If you flip them, you may notice that the cyan layer is not visible.
Just drag the top source to the bottom of the list, to flip them back.
Vertical and Horizontal Camera Adjustments
To ease eye strain, you will want to bump the cameras to as horizontally correct as you can determine.
This feed is likely to cause some stress...
It works, because our brains are amazing things, but after a while it will be annoying.By selecting the source then holding down the mouse button on the object on the canvas, you can use the arrow keys to make very small adjustments to the layers positions on the canvas.
In this example it puts the red-blue focus somewhere in the middle of my head. And as the vertical alignment is close, less strain on viewers.
Trim the Edges
After tweaking the larger positions I noticed that there was some extra red and cyan trim around the edge on my layers.
Right Click the scene RedBlue_Source > Filters
Plus Button > Crop/Pad
name: EdgeTrim
Click OK
At this point you'll have to play until you are happy with the results. Here is what mine looks like
Source Final...
Final Scene
Earlier I mentioned letterbox, OBS does not letterbox, or pillerbox, unless the source aspect ratio differs from the canvas AND you use “Fit to screen”. The last step...
Make a new scene
Scenes box > Plus button
Name: RedBlue_Cropped
Click OK
The sources box will be empty,
Add a Source
Source box > Plus button > Scene
Add Existing > select RedBlue_Source
Click OK
In Sources, Right click the RedBlue_Source > Transform > Fit to screen
Final!
Use it
On installing the software, OBS creates a virtual video source called OBS Virtual Camera that is usable by most meeting software.
In Zoom it looks like this...
When you are ready to start using it, Start OBS, select the scene RedBlue_Cropped, and start the virtual camera (button in the lower right).
The start button toggles to Stop...
Conclusion
There are actual video engineers out in the world that you should probably consult for advice on how to do this stuff. But, hopefully it gets you on a starting path.
You're done! : )
P.S. I still have the original packaging and glasses! : )
