HOW TO MAKE 3D PHOTOS 

HERE'S HOW TO TURN YOUR SMARTPHONE INTO A 3D CAMERA

AS WELL AS A 3D VIEWER: 

Duplicating the depth that we see with the aid of two eyes, 3D stereoscopic photos are created from two views of a single scene taken from two separate vantage points. You can use your smartphone to take two side-by-side photos of a stationary subject.  You can use Stereo PhotoMaker PC  freeware or the 3DSteroid App for Android smartphones to convert your two 2D photos into a single 3D photo.  And then you can use the 3DVu™ viewer to view the finished 3D photo via your phone.   The following instructions describe this process.  Click on the arrows to the right of each instruction step to advance or back up the instructions.

STEP 1

CREATE:Take an initial photo to create the left stereoscopic view of your subject.  Maintaining the same camera height and distance from your subject, move your phone slightly to your right and take a second photo to create the right stereoscopic view. 

The displacement between your two shots is called the interaxial distance. This is a critical factor in 3D. In general, the interaxial distance should be about 1/30th of the distance to your subject but you can experiment with this value.  Increasing the interaxial distance moves objects further in front of the screen.  To duplicate our front-facing eyes, you should keep your two shots parallel to one another.  Pointing the camera views inward to converge on a point moves objects further behind the scene and creates keystone distortions. 

STEP 2a

CONVERT:If your phone is not an Android, download and launch Stereo PhotoMaker on your PC computer.  This freeware runs on all versions of Windows and PowerPCs and Intel Macs with emulation or virtual-machine software.  It is available in English, French, German and Japanese versions, comes with an extensive Help file and may be downloaded from:

http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/

Stereo PhotoMaker is feature-filled but you can create an excellent 3D photo with just a few simple operations.  First, pull down the 'File' drop down menu and select 'Open Left/Right Images'.  Load the left and right photos stored on your phone into the program on your computer.

STEP 2b

CONVERT (CONT): Click on  'Auto Color Adjustment' in the 'Adjust' drop down menu to precisely match the hue, saturation and brightness of the two images either using the left image as the reference or the right.  Click on the 'Auto Alignment' option to position the two photos for the optimum 3D effect.  Click on 'Save Stereo Image' in the 'File' menu to save the 3D side-by-side photo back to your smartphone memory. 

Alternatively, if you have an Android smartphone, just install the app into your phone from:

http://www.appbrain.com/app/3dsteroid/jp.suto.stereoroid

and use it to automatically align your two photos.

STEP 3