Ocula Now Shipping!

Leading visual effects software developer The Foundry ( www.thefoundry.co.uk) is now shipping Ocula - the unique collection of plug-in tools that solve common problems with stereoscopic imagery, boost productivity in post production and ultimately help to deliver a more rewarding stereoscopic viewing experience.
Ocula plug-ins are designed to automatically replicate key processes on left and right channels and help artists polish and refine stereoscopic material, literally removing headaches from the final viewing experience.
Dr Bill Collis, CEO of The Foundry, said: "Since we announced Ocula at NAB 2008 this year, the entire toolset has been through extensive beta-testing and further rounds of development. As Ocula plug-ins enable precise, pixel-level manipulation of stereoscopic imagery, they will help artists to refine and finesse stereo footage in a highly productive fashion. Ultimately, Ocula will mean fewer headaches at the cinema."
Matt Welford, Head of Compositing at Weta Digital, commented: "The team at Weta has worked closely with The Foundry on the development of Ocula. The result is a very useful toolset that solves many problems encountered during post-production on stereo footage."
Ocula's tool set is based on brand new disparity-mapping algorithms, created by The Foundry's Academy Award-winning R&D team. Disparity maps track and correlate the differences in positional space and movement between corresponding pixels in the left and right cameras, delivering pixel-level control over images. Knowing where disparities occur, Ocula tools apply correction by warping, stretching and squeezing only the areas of an image that require treatment. Image manipulation using disparity maps is different to the X, Y or Z-axis shifting of images, where only whole image planes are being shifted.
Ocula plug-ins allow artists to apply a multitude of adjustments to stereo image pairs. All corrections can be made to the left and right eye channels either together or separately , minimising or eliminating discomfort from the stereo viewing experience.
Ocula Plug-ins are:

• INTEROCULAR SHIFTER allows users to reduce camera interaxial separation in post-production. Using disparity map data, two new 'virtual' views are created between the original left and right eye positions, resulting in objects of differernt fore, mid and background depths being given a more gentle depth effect. This is different to an X-axis shift to adjust convergence, where only the image plane is moved
• VERTICAL ALIGNER automatically attempts to vertically align corresponding image features in each view to minimise or eliminate camera misalignment and 'key-stoning'. This is not a single Y-shift for the whole image - the correction varies across the entire image
• NEW VIEW - allows the creation of a single view from a stereo pair of images. Users can create this new view at any position between the original views using one or both of the original views. The 'new view' then replaces both of the existing views
• CORRELATE dramatically reduces the amount of manual labour required by artists undertaking paint or rotoscoping work. Many position-dependent image manipulations, such as paint/roto can be automatically propagated from one eye to the other, substantially improving productivity
• COLOURMATCH lets you match the colours of one view with those of another. It has been specifically designed to deal with the subtle colour differences that are sometimes present between stereo views

Nuke 5.1 is currently the only visual effects compositing system with an embedded 3D stereoscopic workflow where left and right eye channels can be manipulated separately or together. Nuke 5.1 is, therefore, currently the only platform that supports Ocula.
Further information is available at: www.thefoundry.co.uk
(KMcA)