[Bf-committers] Stereoscopy Implementation Proposal

[Dalai Felinto]

Hi everyone,
Just dropping by to update those interested on early testing the multi-view
support.

Once again, the latest code can be checked in from:
https://github.com/dfelinto/blender/tree/multiview

Updates (things that can/should be tested):
==========================
- New panel implemented (render views)
  * It may be overkill to have a panel only for this, but we will see.
    maybe the panel itself can be enabled/disabled via a user preferences.
    In the meantime enjoy the icon ;)

- Blender Internal and Cycles rendering work
  * anti-alias, FSA, Save Buffers all work.
    (though FSA final implementation will be done once I do the Compositor)

- Load/Save MultiView or MultiPart openexr images work.
 * Sample files:
https://github.com/openexr/openexr-images/tree/master/MultiView
   (to make MultiPart files from them use `exrmultipart -convert` from
openexr suite)

 * That also means you now need openexr 2.0 to test the branch.
    It would be nice if either we update Blender libs once 2.67 is out, or
if *platform
    maintainers could help building openexr, openimageio and osl libs*
    I can host them on github or my ftp, either way it should help more
people to test.

To be tackled next:
==============
- Compositor

Things that still need a good design:
==========================
- Outputting files
  * openexr works nicely, but what if you want to save pngs/jpgs?
    I thought on having a special marker %%%% to use in the filepath that
will be used
    to replace the filename or folder with the view name

- Built-in stereo camera VS multi-view
  * I grown fan of the idea of having multi-cameras defined independently
by the user
    (as current implemented in the branch), so thanks for the feedback on
that.

    We could/should, however, have ways of simplify the life of people
doing simple stereo.
    So I still need to find the best way to conciliate the original
proposal with the
    multi-view setup.

  * Also, along this line, I need to rethink how the viewport preview would
work.
    If your multiview cameras are parallel (and you are planning to do the
convergence
    in post) you still should be able to preview a converged 3d in viewport.

  * Same goes for UV/Image editor. We will need a way to pick which views
are to be used. This could be a user pref settings (as Ton said, if the
screen requires 9 images, you want to set that up somewhere).

  * Now you know why we first thought on simple stereo versus multiview ;)


Final notes:
========
As of this iteration nothing should crash. I suspect I may have overseen
some of the threading code so things may crash. If they do, feel free to
contact me directly (to not clutter the list).

And please keep the discussions in the list objective and concise (unlike
my emails err) [and thanks for the feedback/interest so far].

Cheers,
Dalai
--
blendernetwork.org/member/dalai-felinto
www.dalaifelinto.com