Ocula

Stereoscopic Post-production Plug-ins

OCULA is a 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.

The 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.

OCULA 2.0, created by The Foundry’s Sci-Tech Award-winning R&D team, has considerable workflow improvements to better control the calibration of stereo sequences, as well as new algorithms to perform image corrections and disparity map generation. The toolset also gains additional functionality with the ability to generate disparity maps from CG depth maps, and depth maps from live-action stereo footage.

OCULA 2.1 adds the DisparityViewer node, allowing easy visualisation of disparity vectors, a range of improvements for dealing with footage from mirror rigs, multi-sampling for a general increase in visual quality and a host of other improvements.

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 corrections by warping, stretching and squeezing only the areas of an image that require treatment. Image manipulation using disparity maps is different from 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.

CUSTOMER TESTIMONIAL 2011

PAUL LAMBERT, COMPOSITING SUPERVISOR AT DIGITAL DOMAIN
“We worked closely with The Foundry to optimise the performance of OCULA for ‘TRON: LEGACY’ and itsaddition to the already robust 3D capabilities of NUKE leaves no doubt that The Foundry’s tools are the industry’s best compositing solution. OCULA’s ColourMatcher proved to be a tremendous asset to our team, even though it had never been used to this extent on a stereo 3D film.”

ERIK WINQUIST, COMPOSITING SUPERVISOR, WETA DIGITAL
“The OCULA plug-ins for NUKE became an impressive and invaluable toolset for us on AVATAR. I wouldn’t want to dive into another stereo show without them in the arsenal.”