Rendering for Samsung Gear VR - Question

[Alan Iglesias]

So I've got a client asking me to research how they may show their clients 3D stereo panoramic imagery of their product. I've got a Samsung S7, the Gear VR, and have been rendering Cubic 6x1 panoramas using Vray's Cube 6x1 camera and Stereo Helper.

I render them out (18432x1536), drop them on the S7 and everything seems to be fine while viewing - except one thing: I can see noticeable seams between the rendered cubic sections. The client will definitely notice that!

I took a close zoomed-in look at the actual pixels rendered and although there does seem to be an "influence" on the last row of pixels before the new section (see detail below - save the image and zoom in to pixel level), it doesn't seem to be enough to cause the seams I'm seeing - or perhaps it is?

Has anyone seen this? Rendering problem or viewing problem? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks very much in advance!

-Alan

[Neilg]

Are you using the orbx viewer?
Are you rendering with vrays filter turned on?

[Alan Iglesias]

Are you using the orbx viewer?
Are you rendering with vrays filter turned on?

I am using the standard Oculus viewer that comes with the Gear VR. I did the trick where you make a directory and the App finds it. But if there are other ways to view that cause a lot less navigation BS, then I'm all for it, so I'll go look around for the Orbx viewer.

And what Vray Filter are you referring to please?

Thanks very much for the reply, Neil.

-Alan

[Alan Iglesias]

Neil, I'm thinking you are asking about Vray's Image Filter in the sampler, correct? (finally popped into my thick head!) If so, the answer is yes, I was using the Lanczos filter, and I'm thinking that it could have caused the problem. Is there another one I should use or just drop the filter all together?

Thanks,

-Alan

[Alan Iglesias]

Bingo! Taking the AA filter off fixed the seams, but there are places in the image where there is some noticeable aliasing and could use some help - especially when you consider we are viewing these things so "close up". Is there a way to address this or will I end up doing it by hand?

Thanks very much for your help,

-Alan

[Neilg]

Sorry for the delayed response!
So far we've found that rendering like this just requires higher settings. noise is a major distraction in stereoscopic, so clamping/sub pixel mapping is on, we're using reinhard burn set a little lower to help pull the hot spots down and settings across the board are all a little higher.

[Alan Iglesias]

Sorry for the delayed response!
So far we've found that rendering like this just requires higher settings. noise is a major distraction in stereoscopic, so clamping/sub pixel mapping is on, we're using reinhard burn set a little lower to help pull the hot spots down and settings across the board are all a little higher.

It's all good...I really appreciate your help. And hopefully this thread may help others.

Cheers!

-Alan

[Alan Iglesias]

OK - Everything is much better, but Vlado, could you please address the following?

Even without using an Image Filter I'm still getting some differences between rendered cube sections using the 6x1 camera. Not so much seams as before, but actual differences in shading. This can be seen in the below shot if loaded in the Gear VR (or any VR App I would imagine) where the green screen is shaded differently where the cube sections bisect it. Also, not using any filter at all can make some high-contrast parts of the image very aliased. So...

A. Can these differences in shading when not using an Image Filter be fixed?

B. Is there now or could there be in the future an Image Filter that respects the 6x1 Camera's rendered cube section boundaries?

Thanks very much!

-Alan

[svetlozar.draganov]

Is this image indeed rendered with Filtering OFF, it looks like the filtering is ON?
Can you post an image rendered with Filtering ON and another one with Filtering OFF so we could compare the difference?
Would you please also outline on the image what exactly seems to be the issue?

Thank you very much in advance.

[tricky]

I watched a talk once (quite old) on creating stereo photo panoramas. The chap said not to use jpegs as the compression artefacts for stereo become more obvious (and also something about the colour depth of jpegs is wrong...). PNG I think is a better option.

[Alan Iglesias]

No, all filtering was off. Look at the lines that separate the different views and you will see what I mean. If you don't see it, I will be happy to go in there and annotate them in the morning and get them back to you.

Thanks for looking at this!

-Alan

[Alan Iglesias]

I watched a talk once (quite old) on creating stereo photo panoramas. The chap said not to use jpegs as the compression artefacts for stereo become more obvious (and also something about the colour depth of jpegs is wrong...). PNG I think is a better option.

Yes, that is a very good point Richard, and I appreciate your comment. It is just that, in this particular case, very fast downloading times are of great importance so I would like to use the JPGs if at all possible.

As I looked at the discrepancies in the shots, the problems were not immediately reminiscent of compression artifacts, but of course I could be completely wrong! I will re-render and take a look.

Thanks again,

-Alan

[Morne]

Sorry for the delayed response!
So far we've found that rendering like this just requires higher settings. noise is a major distraction in stereoscopic, so clamping/sub pixel mapping is on, we're using reinhard burn set a little lower to help pull the hot spots down and settings across the board are all a little higher.

Neil, using Reinhard like this, do you leave your color mapping MODE to "Color mapping only (no gamma)" or do you set the MODE to "None (don't apply anything)"?

[Neilg]

depends if you want it to actually do anything or not.

[Morne]

depends if you want it to actually do anything or not.

Well both options does something. Sounds like you're using "Color mapping only (no gamma)"?