Stereoscopic 3D

SGO Mistika has arguably the most advanced and developed Stereo 3D post production toolset in the market. As an early adopter of S3D the Mistika toolset has become the standard for many Stereoscopic 3D productions. BSkyB has placed it at the core of their workflow for the Sky 3D channel and Park Road Post use multiple Mistika’s at the heart of their stereoscopic 3D workflow on productions like The Hobbit. Many other companies such as The Framestore, On Sight, BTV Post and many others world-wide, base their stereoscopic 3D strategy on the Mistika system.

Stereoscopic Toolset – Produce the most comfortable 3D viewing experience

Creative Stereoscopic 3D Tools and Workflows
A single integrated and truly open creative environment, achieving professional Stereo 3D results with ease, through the use of dedicated and intuitive 3D tools.

Equalize  
The fastest and most capable automated stereoscopic image-matching tool on the market. An essential tool for delivering exceptional Stereo 3D material.

Auto-Match of Shear and Anamorphic Zoom
Fixes distortions caused by an incorrectly fitted mirror in a stereo rig.

Vertical Pitch Correction
Highly advanced algorithms to help with scenarios where the left and right camera pitches are mismatched, meaning that there is a vertical discrepancy that varies according to the distance from the camera. Also fixes many difficult cases of irregular distortion of a warped splitting mirror.

Sharpening Soft Eye Feature
Focus mismatch of the stereoscopic pair can be fixed, salvaging many shots that otherwise would have to be discarded.

Real-time Colour Matching and Stereo Colour Grading Tools
Interactive and intuitive colour matching tools to balance each eye. Simultaneous multi-layer colour grading for both eyes, without copying settings required.

Real-time “Key-frameable” Convergence, Windows and Depth Transitions
Change convergence points technically and creatively during the post process. Floating windows minimise distracting stereo window/edge violations and create smooth convergence transitions between shots.

Interocular Distance Compensation and Geometry Fix
Advanced tools to manage scene depth or rescue shots. Automated geometry correction between eyes.

Native Stereo 3D Compositing, Visualisation and Monitoring
Composite stereo layers in a real 3D environment and apply effects or filters in stereo 3D. Independently control various stereo visualisation and analysis modes for all outputs with stereo scopes and depth graphs.

 

Mistika’s advanced Stereoscopic features include optical recognition between left and right cameras to aid the rapid correction of inherent stereo problems, such as camera pairs that are not exactly aligned.

 

“Mistika provided the bulk of the post production work. At the outset, it aligned and prepared all the rushes for offline, meaning that the FCP editor did not have to concern himself with RAW camera files or unprepared stereo images that are hard to watch. Mistika’s “Equalize” function meant that syncing and aligning some four hours of rushes took less than an hour.”

David Cox, Stereographer and Post Production Supervisor, Sharp Cookies.

Mistika also allows its very strong colour grading functions to be applied to both image streams at the same time, or to just the left or right as need be. Compositing can also be carried out in 3D. Mistika’s real-time stereo tools including colour grading, convergence adjustments and camera error correction, as well as some very advanced features such as retrospective adjustment of the camera’s interocular distance have left the market stunned by its remarkable ability.

 

“It would have been impossible to correct that amount of material in such a short space of time, to Sky’s exacting standards, on any other system. Mistika remains without a doubt, the fastest and most productive finishing and workflow system around.”

Francisco Ramos, Lead Stereosgrapher, The Royal Wedding in 3D, BSkyB.

SGO Mistika features Equalize, the industry’s fastest and most capable automatic stereoscopic image matching tool. Equalize provides fully automated functions for correcting discrepancies between left and right images, caused by differences in cameras, lenses and stereo rig systems.

Mismatches between left and right images are a fact of stereoscopic life and are caused by a variety of inherent shooting variables such as mismatched lenses and stereoscopic camera rigs that do not have the two cameras perfectly aligned. These result in a pair of images where one has a size, position or rotational difference with respect to the other. They are known collectively as geometric misalignments and must be removed by perfectly matching the left and right images together. If they are not matched, the audience will experience discomfort while watching misaligned stereo content, which in turn results in viewer fatigue and headaches. Manual alignment of Stereo 3D material is an extremely time-consuming process and can account for a large proportion of a post production budget, if attempted.

Mistika’s Equalize technology builds on Mistika’s already famous ability to rapidly align stereo images, with the results being immediately playable and usable in real time. Equalize provides an automatic assessment of the geometric errors between left and right images, using advanced proprietary image recognition technology. This assessment then generates settings to correct not just positional, rotational and scale differences, but also “key-stoning” challenges. The assessment takes barely half a second to compute after which, the corrected shot can be played, or used immediately in real-time, with no further rendering.

 

“Equalize is a massive time saver for Stereo 3D post and ensures that only the best 3D ever leaves a Mistika suite.”

Nicholas Recagno, Stereoscopic 3D Mistika Artist, The Royal Wedding in 3D, BSkyB

In addition, Mistika also features a two-step colour matching algorithm. The first will colour-match the majority of stereo 3D shots by creating an overall colour grade to match one eye to the other (or both to a common point). The second step, where needed, executes a pixel-by-pixel match in order to repair stereo oddities such as polarised light that creates spot-differences in textures between images.

The practical effect of Mistika’s unique Equalize technology, coupled with it’s amazing real time processing of the result, has wide-ranging implications to massively improve the efficiency of stereoscopic productions.

 

“Equalize is designed to ensure that of a given post production budget or schedule, the smallest amount of time is used up on the technical aspects of alignment, conforming including all the mundane, but necessary processes as well. This allows the majority of the time to be spent creatively – and there are plenty of creative tools in Mistika for that! Our driving force is to simply empower our artists and operators to create the very best content by providing them with the fastest and most flexible tools possible.”

Miguel Angel Doncel, CEO of SGO

The Benefits of using Mistika for Stereo 3D projects include:

• Real-time geometry matching
  Camera misalignment on set is a reality – fix it immediately in post in no time
• Real-time colour matching
  Colour balance eyes automatically – then move on to the interactive creative tools
• Interactive and animated parallax modifications (convergence)
  Define the ‘zero’ plane in real-time – use creatively for point of attention
• Interocular distance interpolation
  Fix camera separation and Stereo 3D depth issues interactively, and in zones, which is one of the most challenging undertakings in post
• Complete Real-time Stereo 3D advanced colour grading
  Grade in Stereo 3D in real-time as the the final product will be seen in Stereo 3D, so why grade in mono?
• Full Stereo 3D compositing environment
  Work creatively in real-time, in Stereo 3D and see immediate results
• Multiple Stereo 3D visualisation modes
  View independent Stereo 3D visualisation modes – side-by-side, dual stream, anaglyph, checker, mix, left eye, right eye and difference matte
• Real-time floating windows
  Avoid peripheral distraction and prevent crossing negative parallax boundaries becoming an issue
• Real-time Z-Depth shot transitions (hand-offs)
  Smoothly and seamlessly changes convergence between shots – keep disbelief suspended
• Delivery stereo formats
  Deliver footage directly in any Stereo 3D standard – side-by-side, dual stream, data, tape
• Dual Stereo 3D ingest supporting progressive and interlaced formats
  Input the data in immediately – from any stereo source including HDCam SR, or live footage
• All in a single integrated and interactive environment
  All the tools with all the capabilities

 

Stereoscopic 3D features in detail:

• Dual HD SDI stereo output in real-time, including HD and 2K uncompressed sources with pan & scan, 3DLUT and colour grading applied.
• 3D Interactive parameter adjust: Owing to the new stereo groups, all modifications to any effect can be adjusted interactively in the stereo output, without the need to “copy to the other eye”. An effect can be applied to both eyes or to one eye, at any moment.
• Context sensitive evaluation: Dual eye stereo feedback can be changed to single-eye mode with the simple touch of a button. The feedback of all stereo groups are switched to the single-eye mode, in order to work with them in the 2D reference display until you decide to switch back to the stereo output.
• Amazing new tools to compare the two clips: Fix the colour and luminance differences; and adjust the distance between the two eyes, based on Mistika’s unique motion estimation techniques.
• Advanced tools to correct image deformations: Typically used when using cameras with mirror rigs.
• Match grading tools: To correct colour differences between eyes.
• 3D compositing in a true 3D environment: With two cameras (one for each eye) provided, the second camera is managed automatically at a predefined distance. Place text and flying logos in a Stereo 3D scene, or even a Stereo 3D chroma key into a dual eye Stereo 3D background.
• Geometric correction: For easy adjustment of deformations produced by mirror camera rigs and other geometric differences in terms of X and Y scaling, rotation, and position. The correction of these differences is essential for Stereo 3D post production. These differences occur for different reasons, such as 3D rigs with regard to movement (different movements and vibration patterns of both cameras); mirror rigs for a vertical mounted second camera (geometric deformations and luminance ramps); light sources producing light differences between the two lenses as well as the internal differences of both lenses, convergence errors, focus differences and so forth.
• 3D Stereo capture and play-out from/to HDCAM-SR and other dual link recording VTRs: In addition, Mistika can automatically encode/decode two YUV 422 10bit signals into one consecutive file, which avoids the double “seek times” required by two files resulting in excellent disk speed performance.
• Collaborate: Stereo 3D player for external sequences out of the Mistika storage. You can link DPX, tga, AVI, MXF, QuickTime files, and other external sequences located in other places; and play them to the stereo output without any import or conversion process. Additionally, Mistika’s advanced pre-read buffering and disk access prioritisation tools, permit to sustain real time stereo play-outs for external files, even in the most difficult situations, because it can manage the typical big I/O peaks that usually appear in any shared storage, under heavy traffic conditions.
• Multiple stereo modes: For both for interactive visualisation and for rendering to image files. A complete list is summarised below.