VR180

NOTE: I am still updating this page.

How to publish VR180

https://www.blog.google/products/google-vr/how-publish-vr180/

VR180: NEW FORMAT AIMS TO EXPAND IMMERSIVE MARKET

VR180 Creator

Introducing VR180 Creator, simplifying the video editing process

VR180 cameras allow creators to shoot three-dimensional, immersive photos and videos using affordable cameras that are small enough to fit in your pocket.

And to make it even easier for you to create and edit high quality VR videos, we’re launching VR180 Creator on Mac and Linux. This desktop tool lets anyone edit VR180 footage with existing VR video tools.

VR180 Creator currently offers two features for VR videos. “Convert for Publishing” takes raw fisheye footage from VR180 cameras like the Lenovo Mirage Camera and converts it into a standardized equirect projection. This can be edited with the video editing software creators already use, like Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. “Prepare for Publishing” re-injects the VR180 metadata after editing so that the footage is viewable on YouTube or Google Photos in 2D or VR.



Convert your VR180 footage into a standardized format so you can edit it with leading editing tools like Adobe Premiere and then re-inject the appropriate metadata for publishing.

https://arvr.google.com/vr180/apps/   DOWNLOAD HERE



VR180 Creator release notes
https://support.google.com/vr180/answer/9049949


Google’s VR180 Creator Tool Makes it Easier to Edit VR Video on Linux
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2018/06/google-vr180-creator


https://itsfoss.com/vr180-creator/

https://fstoppers.com/originals/introduction-vr180-format-440235

DNxHR was listed as an output option instead of mpeg4. This is something I wasn't familiar with.
I have yet to try it on anything.

Avid DNxHR, which stands for "Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Resolution", is a lossy UHDTV post-production codec 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNxHR_codec

Cameras

 Z-Cam

http://www.z-cam.com/180-vr-camera-k1-pro/

Kandao qoocam

VR180 Video Format

1. Introduction

VR180 cameras are a new category of VR camera that use two wide angle cameras to capture the world as you see it with point and shoot simplicity. This document describes the video format output by these devices. The choice considers the following aspects:

FOV: VR180 cameras capture sub-360 FOV rather than full 360. It is important to retain the original pixel density of the camera sensors in order to provide high pixel density for VR viewing.
Projection: Different versions of VR180 cameras may have different lens and different camera projections. As such the file format should be camera-independent.
Motion: The cameras can often be non-stationary due to unintentional shakes or intentional motion, for example, handheld capture of events or people. To avoid motion sickness, camera motion metadata should be saved for stabilized playback.
Playback: The file format should be friendly enough for local playback so that manufacturers can easily build their apps. Android and iOS should have an easy way to play the raw video.
VR180 videos contain two types of metadata to jointly define the projection from video frames to their partial viewports within a spherical coordinate system.

A global static projection that defines the mapping from the pixels to local spherical coordinate systems, typically to only a sub-180 FOV part. The Spherical Metadata V2 Spec is adopted here to encode this global metadata. (See details in section 2).
A dynamic orientation stream that defines the rotation between the local coordinate system of each frame and the world coordinate system. A new Camera Motion Metadata track is created for encoding such per-frame metadata. (See section 3).

https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/vr180.md

Spherical Video V2 RFC

This document describes a revised open metadata scheme by which MP4 (ISOBMFF) and WebM (Matroska) multimedia containers may accommodate spherical videos. Comments are welcome by discussing on the Spatial Media Google group or by filing an issue on GitHub.

Metadata Format
MP4 (ISOBMFF)
Spherical video metadata is stored in a new box, sv3d, defined in this RFC, in an MP4 (ISOBMFF) container. The metadata is applicable to individual video tracks in the container. Since many spherical videos are also stereoscopic, this RFC also defines an additional optional box, st3d, to specify metadata specific to stereoscopic rendering.

As the V2 specification stores its metadata in a different location, it is possible for a file to contain both the V1 and V2 metadata. If both V1 and V2 metadata are contained they should contain semantically equivalent information, with V2 taking priority when they differ.

Stereoscopic 3D Video Box (st3d)

https://github.com/google/spatial-media/blob/master/docs/spherical-video-v2-rfc.md

Here's the 4K IMAX Camera That's Going to Make 3D Movies Awesome Again

http://gizmodo.com/heres-the-4k-imax-camera-thats-going-to-make-3d-movies-1588929194

A history of 3D cinema

1826  French inventor Nicéphore Niépce made the first permanent photograph from nature with a camera obscura


1838 Charles Wheatstone invented the stereogram. He found an explanation of binocular vision which led him to construct a stereoscope based on a combination of prisms and mirrors to allow a person to see 3D images from two 2D pictures.

1855 James Clerk Maxwell  developed color theory and the perception of color,

1861 The first color photograph made by the three-color method suggested by James Clerk Maxwell in 1855, taken by Thomas Sutton.

1861 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. invented an improved form of stereoscope which had no mirrors and was inexpensive to produce. These stereoscopes were immensely popular for decades.

1888 Thomas Edison invents the Kinetoscope also known as a peep-hole viewer.

1894 William Friese-Greene files a patent application for a 3D viewing process using two screens side by side, united in the viewer's eye by a cumbersome stereoscope headset.

From Wikipedia:
"In the early 1890's he experimented with cameras to create stereoscopic moving images but met with limited success. Friese-Greene’s experiments in the field of motion pictures were at the expense of his other business interests and in 1891 he was declared bankrupt. To cover his debts he sold the rights to the 'chronophotographic' camera patent no. 10131 for £500. The renewal fee was never paid and the patent eventually lapsed."

1894 Herman Casler invents the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutoscope a peep-hole viewer
like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope

1894-6, Thomas Armat's Vitascope, manufactured by the Edison factory and marketed in Edison's name, was used to project motion pictures in public screenings in New York City.

1903 Frederic Eugene Ives patented the parallax stereogram, the first "no glasses" autostereoscopic 3-D display technology. A compound image consisting of fine interlaced vertical slivers of a stereoscopic pair of images was seen in 3-D when viewed through a slightly separated fine grid of correctly spaced alternating opaque and transparent vertical lines, now known as a parallax barrier.


1905 Auto-Stereoscope by Rosenfield Manufacturing Company, New York, NY, coin-operated, drop card machine

1914 "Niagara Falls" (short) , Porter-Waddell Stereoscopic Process

1915 "Jim the Penman",  the first anaglyph movie Edwin S Porter,  and William E. Waddell  red-green anaglyph test shorts in New York, but his process is never developed further. The film used was simple footage of rural landscapes and short excerpts of previous films that had been converted in to the format.

1921 Rêve d'opium France Stereo Parolini

1922 "The Power of Love", using a system developed by cinematographer Robert F Elder, is the first 3D movie screened for a paying audience, in Los Angeles.  Fairhall-Elder 3-D

1922 "The Man From MARS" aka Radio-Mania  An inventor succeeds in making contact with Mars via television. Teleview (dual-strip 3-D) (single-strip/frame sequential release print)  Using two projectors synchronised with stereo headsets, Laurens Hammond and William Cassidy present a series of shorts plus one feature, The Man From MARS, but it played only at the sole cinema equipped to project it.

"Plastigrams" This film was released on 17 December 1922 in the Ives-Leventhal stereoscopic


"Movies of The Future"

1923 Frederick Eugene Ives and Joseph Levanthal present several 3D shorts for Pathe Films.

1925 Zowie, Luna-cy!, Ouch!, A Runaway Taxi( all 3D Shorts)

1929  Edwin H. Land invented and patented a polarizing sheet. He gave the first demonstration of Polaroid filters in conjunction with 3-D photography at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in January 1936

1935 MGM's Audioscopics, developed by Joseph Leventhal and John Norling, wins the Best Short Subject (Novelty) Academy Award. 

1936  "Nozze vagabonde" (Italian: Beggers Wedding) using Systeme Gualtiero Gualtierotti single-strip 3-D system. It was the first 3-D talkie film (with a synchronized soundtrack) to encourage the use of 3D polarizing glasses by its viewing audience. 

 

"Zum Greifen nah" (German: Within reach or  You Can Nearly Touch It).

NAZI's present Raumbild 3D Film technology at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

1939 The first commercial Polaroid 3-D film in the U.S.; commissioned by Chrysler for showing at the Chrysler Motor Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair, under the title "In Tune With Tomorrow", the 15-minute short depicted a full 1939 Chrysler Plymouth being magically put together (in stop-motion), set to music. It was so popular that Chrysler commissioned a color remake for the second year of the fair, under the title "New Dimensions"; the color version was released theatrically by R.K.O. in 1953 as "Motor Rhythm"


1952-55 The first boom period in 3D cinema, led by Bwana Devil, Andre de Toth's House of Wax (the first of four 3D movies to star the determinedly one-dimensional Vincent Price, the Olivier of the form), and Dial M for Murder (filmed 3D, released "flat"). As TV menaces the studios (lately forced by the US Supreme Court to sell their cinemas), they push all kinds of new formats such as Cinerama, CinemaScope, Technicolor and VistaVision.


1953 It Came from Outer Space

If you have Red/blue glasses this image is worth viewing. Click for full size.

1973 Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey revive the now seemingly obsolete format for Flesh For Frankenstein, in the short-lived Stereovision format. The skewering of one character, whose extruded heart dangles horribly close to the 3D viewer's eye, is a particular highlight of the film.



1982  Lenny Lipton's book Foundations of the Stereoscopic Cinema, is published. 

Friday the 13th Part III in 3D

1983 Jaws 3D , Amityville 3D

1985  We Are Born of Stars (IMAX 3D)

1986 The world's first IMAX 3D system premieres at the Canada Pavilion, EXPO '86 in Vancouver, Canada.   Transitions (IMAX 3D)

1990 Echoes of the Sun  (First IMAX DOME 3D film.)

1995 Wings of Courage, Across the Sea of Time,  (IMAX 3D)


1996 L5: First City in Space  (IMAX 3D)

1999 Encounter in the Third Dimension (IMAX 3D) tries to show the history of 3-D film,
Alien Adventure  (IMAX 3D), Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Box (IMAX 3D)

2003 James Cameron's "Ghosts of the Abyss", a 3D documentary tour of the Titanic wreckage

2004 "The Polar Express" makes cinematic history as the world's first full- length IMAX 3D Hollywood feature. Make $121M on 3500 2-D screens and $49M on only 68 3-D screens. The IMAX 3D version shatters box office records worldwide and becomes the highest grossing digitally re-mastered IMAX release at over $60 million on under 100 screens.

Insane Clown Posse's short film "Bowling Balls" is the first high-definition 3D short.

2006 – "Superman Returns: An IMAX 3D Experience" becomes the world's first live-action Hollywood title to be released with select scenes converted into IMAX 3D using IMAX's proprietary live-action 2D to 3D digital conversion technology. 

2007 - IMAX signs a four picture deal with DreamWorks Animation. The agreement marks IMAX's first multiple 3D picture deal with a Hollywood studio. 

2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth

2009 Avatar break box office records.   Coraline, My Bloody Valentine 3D,
The IMAX 3D camera returns to space on board the NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis to chronicle the final mission of The Hubble Telescope for the Warner Bros. and IMAX co-production: ‘Hubble 3D’.

2013 Titanic and Starwars are re-released in 3D, I assume some 2D to 3D conversion was applied.

2016  Avatar 2 is expected.


Sources:
  http://www.filmprojectors.eu/
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutoscope
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/aug/20/3d-film-history
  http://www.s3dcentre.ca/news/nazi-3d-philippe-mora-and-me
  http://www.imax.com/corporate/history/
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_IMAX_films
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_film
  http://www.imdb.com/keyword/3-dimensional/?sort=release_date
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_3-D_films
  http://www.genordell.com/stores/lantern/stereo3D.htm
  http://the3drevolution.blogspot.com/2009/10/3-d-film-formats-beyond-real-d-dolby3d.html
  http://books.google.com/books?ei=bFh2T6bWD4SOiAK6x5GnDg&id=C1dgJ3-y1ZsC&dq=Nozze+vagabonde+olympics&ots=iUSYONG3Zo&q=vagabonde#v=snippet&q=vagabonde&f=false

Technology Filmmaker discovers Nazi 3D movies from the 1930s

From Wired.com:

Decades before Hollywood shlockmeisters rolled out their gimmicky spectacles in the mid-'50s, Nazi filmmakers made 3D propaganda films using their own versions of the format.

Stored in an obscure corner of Berlin's Federal Archives, two black-and-white shorts shot in 1936 were discovered by Australian director Philippe Mora as he researched a project on Third Reich cinema.

Mora told Variety the 3D Nazi movies, evidently filmed with a prism in front of two lenses, "were made … for Goebbels' propaganda ministry and referred to as raum film -- or space film -- which may be why no one ever realised since that they were 3D."

The half-hour films include a musical, So Real You Can Touch It, featuring close-ups of sizzling bratwurst. Six Girls Roll Into Weekend follows a group of Nazi starlets.

"The quality of the films is fantastic," Mora said. "The Nazis were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled -- it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people."

Mora, who believes there are more Nazi 3D films waiting to be unearthed, is already digging into his next project: a 3D biopic about Salvador Dali.

-----

From  Variety:

Third Reich 3D movies unearthed


Documaker Philippe Mora finds unknown pre-war pics

Films shot on 3D in pre-war Nazi Germany have been unearthed in Berlin's Federal Archives.

Two 30 minute black and white propaganda films in 1936 were found by Australian director Philippe Mora, who is prepping a feature length documentary on how the Nazis used images to manipulate reality.

Mora broke new ground with his first film "Swastika" when it was released in 1973 featuring previously unseen color footage from Hitler's "home" movies shot on a 16mm camera by his mistress Eva Braun at the Berghof mountain retreat at Obersalzberg in the Bavarian alps.

Now he has discovered that the Nazis were decades ahead of Hollywood in developing a medium first popularized in the 1950s and now enjoying an international renaissance.

"The films are shot on 35mm -- apparently with a prism in front of two lenses," Mora who is at the Berlinale for his planned $13 million 3D biopic on Salvador Dali, starring Alan Cumming and Judy Davis that he plans to shoot in Germany, Australia and Spain.

"They were made by an independent studio for Goebbels' propaganda ministry and referred to as 'raum film' -- or space film -- which may be why no one ever realised since that they were 3D."

One film, a musical set during a carnival entitled "So Real You Can Touch It" features close up shots of sizzling bratwurst on a barbeque; the other "Six Girls Roll into Weekend" has what may be UFA studio starlets living it up.

"The quality of the films is fantastic. The Nazis were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled -- it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people," Mora said.

He plans to incorporate the material in a 3D section of his documentary -- working title "How the Third Reich Was Recorded" -- and is convinced there is more vintage 3D footage out there to be found.

From http://www.s3dcentre.ca/news/nazi-3d-philippe-mora-and-me:

The Search For 3D in The Third Reich.

Mora told the audience about two Nazi stereoscopic films (shot using a process that the Nazi’s called Raumbild) that he discovered last February. Yet, what was even more unbelievable was the fact that German scientists had employed the 3D film and projection medium during the 1936 Berlin Olympics

“We subsequently discovered that a Technical unit of engineers working with Zeiss Ikon at the Technical and Physics institute in Braunschweig in 1935 and 1936 built special 16MM high-speed stereoscopic units to film certain events at the Olympics. Why? We believe they had determined that in a close race a still photo may be an inaccurate image of who won, depending on the position of the camera.

They built two stereoscopic rigs to film the events in 16MM at 50 frames per second from a special tower over-looking the finishing line. The cameras were triggered by the starter’s pistol. Even more enterprising they developed the film within seven minutes of the races finishing, and projected them with two projectors to examine the races in 3D. Many results were corrected when the judges viewed the stereoscopic films”

From  http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/feb/16/nazi-3d-films-discovered

With Stunning Pina, Wim Wenders Makes Case for 3-D Documentaries

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/01/pina-wim-wenders-3-d

RED teases 4K laser 3D projector | Electronista

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/09/22/red.to.release.4k.laser.3d.projector.soon/

Walt Disney Exec Predicts End of 3D Rigs

Walt Disney Studios' vice president of production technology believes that 3D rigs have a limited lifespan and that a more post-production oriented approach to filming stereo feature film is required.

Disney’s Howard Lukk argues for a hybrid approach to stereoscopic filmmaking which would supplement a 2D camera with smaller ‘witness’ cameras to pick up the 3D volumes, then apply algorithms at a visual effects house or a conversion company to create the 3D and free the filmmaker from cumbersome on-set equipment.

For Lukk, the problem is that 3D rigs are complicated to build and harder still to calibrate for true accuracy.

“There are enough things for the DOP, director and camera operators to try to track on the set as it is, without having to track interaxial and convergence,” he said. “We are making it more complicated on the set, where I think it needs to be less complicated.”

There should not be a battle between natively captured 3D and conversion, he contends. “We should start to ask if there is another method – even combine the two? We really should be looking at all methods to make better quality 3D. In the end, if 3D is not good quality, we are going to kill this stereoscopic industry just as it is re-emerging.”

If 3D camera rigs are not the future of the industry, Lukk suggests that a hybrid approach will develop which will be a combination of capturing volumetric space on set and being able to produce the 3D in a post-production environment at the back end.

“This will give you much more versatility in manipulating the images. This idea feeds on the idea of computational cinematography conceived by Marc Levoy (a computer graphics research at Stanford University) a few years ago. Basically this says that if we capture things in a certain way, we can compute things that we really need in the back end.

“You can be less accurate on the front end. Adobe has been doing a lot of work in this area, where you can refocus the image after the event. You can apply this concept to high dynamic range and higher frame rates.”

Disney is currently researching this method at Disney Research in Zurich, Lukk added. In addition Lukk says that research is also being conducted at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany.

“I think eventually we’ll get back to capturing the volumetric space and allowing cinematographers and directors to do what they do best - that is, capturing the performance,” he said.

Source: TVB Europe

3D Glasses from a Vending Machine

Would You Buy 3D Glasses from a Machine?
Marchon3D will start selling its EX3D line via in-theater vending machines.

Marchon3D has just announced plans to offer its latest 3D eyewear line, the EX3D, via in-theater vending machines.
The self-service machines will be fully stocked with EX3D Eyewear, Marchon3D’s line of patented, curved RealD 3D-compatible glasses. Just swipe your credit card, choose from the assortment of EX3D glasses, and enjoy the show. Prescription frame options will be available, as well as fashion, sport, casual and kids styles. The glasses will also come in various colors and shapes, for $22 to $30, with limited styles going for as much as $70.

This is so cool!!! Trans-Force Media cafe is now on my list of places to visit.

Trans-Force 3D/4D Media cafe Interactive restaurant
This is very cool, the appearance of super high tech without really reaching on the fundamental technology's needed.

I wanna go see one. It a good excuse to go back to Indonesia on my way to India next time.

Широкий выбор игр в библиотеке аттракциона Транс-Форс оправдывает ожидания посетителей любых возрастов. В каталоге представлен весь спектр -- от исследовательских, боевых, спортивных миссий до интерактивных экскурсий и путешествий. Библиотека игр непрерывно пополняется.

Транс-Форс является единственным в мире аттракционом, объединившим большой панорамный экран, систему подвижности, 3D и интерактивность.

3D-стереоскопическая проекционная система основана на использовании самой современной технологии Infitec Wavelength Multiplexing, позволяющей получить качественное и высококонтрастное стереоизображение.

Translates to:

A wide selection of games in the library of the attraction of Trans-Force justify the expectations of visitors of all ages. The catalog presents the entire spectrum - from research, military, sports missions to interactive tours and trips. Continuously updated library of games.

Trans-Force is the only attraction in the world, who united a large panoramic screen, the system of mobility, 3D and interactive.

3D-stereoscopic projection system is based on the latest technology Infitec Wavelength Multiplexing, which allows a high-quality and high-contrast stereo.

Infitec is the same system as used by Dolby/Disney 3D Digital Cinema, I think it's the most superior of all the technologies I've evaluated.

This wouldn't be that technically challenging, but it would be a large task producing the content. But I can see a live 3D video feed from the Racetrack in a such a room with the panoramic screens.

I once had a conversation some 12 years back or so about doing a whole restaurant in Minneapolis with a live HD panoramic video from Hawaii or Florida. Since it's such slow changing moment you should be able to get the bit-rates fairly low.

3D Media-cafe Trans-Force

Links about the Infitec technology. 

Dolby Digital 3D vs Real D / Master image systems.

Dolby 3D Digital Cinema

Dolby's unique full-spectrum color-filter technology licensed from Infitec, enabled by the passive Dolby 3D Glasses,

3D Hurts Your Eyes - Slashdot

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/07/23/1358245/3D-Hurts-Your-Eyes

"After experimenting on 24 adults, a research team at the University of California, Berkeley has determined that viewing content on a stereo 3D display hurts your eyes and your brain. This can supposedly cause visual discomfort, fatigue, and headaches According to the article, 3D content viewed over a short distance (like with desktops and smartphones) is more visually uncomfortable when the stereo content is placed in front of the screen. In a movie theater, it's the opposite: Stereo content that is placed behind the screen causes more discomfort than scenes that jump out at you. With the explosion of 3D-capable gadgetry such as televisions and mobile phones, understanding just what this kind of technology is doing to our bodies may help us better use it in the future. The only problem is that technology tends to far outpace research, and until we get a better handle on its effects, we're more or less walking blindly into a 3D world."

The Ebert Presents At The Movies slams 3D.

http://www.ebertpresents.com/episodes/2011-07
Episode 125, July 8, 2011
It just keeps playing over and over this week. It on one of the few channels I get over the air.  The whole show slams 3D.

I couldn't disagree more with most of their arguments.

Sure some movies use 3D as a gimmick, but with today's digital technology and Moore's law with performance doubling every 18 months.  The price of adding 3D is very small and dropping fast.

Seeing 3D games on the Nintendo 3DS really is mind blowing, the kids love it. It's glasses free and you have to hold it just right to get the full effect, but they adapted quickly and love it.
Now a few more years of this and these kids will not be happy watching 2D content.

3D games and 3D TV are comming to the home, and 3D computer displays are available.  True it's pricy, but I have been following 3D now for 30 years.
From the super expensive Silicon Graphics with Silicon Image 3D display solution.
It's different this time.  There is more they can do, with low cost HD 3D graphics rendering video cards from N-Vidia and there shutter glasses.
3D camera and camcorders, there is finally an ecosystem, and enough devices to reach a critical mass.

So as all these technologies hit, it will eventually make it so watching a 2D movie will be like watching a black and white, or silent movie. Ok maybe not that bad.
But there was a time when color was a novelty and not considered neccessary.
Even Talkies where viewed that way when they first came out.

I remember reading how they had photograph records and the projectionist had to try to keep the projector running at the same speed as the record.  A/V sync, back then was not even a concept.

So now it's 3D, 3D camera and imaging can add a whole new dimention to image analysis because we can extract a 3D depth map, and do the beginning of virtual view point video (free view point video), that will in 20 year be the Big hot technology.

But AR is happening fast, and 3D just plays in to that.

There is also a big push for 2D to 3D conversion also, but this is also in it's infancy and may never work better then colorization of black and white films.  It's hard to add data that doesn't exist. At best artists can try to infer what it should have been and I doubt if that will ever look anywhere's as good a properly shot 3D content.

Many theaters misuse 3-D lenses to show 2-D films

If a theater plays a 2D movie with the 3D filters in place it reduce the amount of light reaching the screen making the image dark and the colors weak.

Read more at this article: A movie lover’s plea: Let there be light

Tron: 82% of viewers watched in 3D; 24% in IMAX

The week before Christmas is notoriously bad for movies.
"Tron: Legacy," brought in an estimated $43.6 million in it's  first 3 days.

 Of 3,451 locations, 2,424 were 3D-equipped, including 234 Imax runs.

 Many theaters were offering both 2D and 3D showings.

Tron earned an overwhelming 82% of its weekend gross from 3D, 24% for digital or large format IMAX.

While "Yogi Bear" saw 57% from 3D, slightly higher than Disney's "Tangled."

Keep in mind this is for around $3 extra per ticket to see it in 3D.

"Tron" earned 24% of its weekend gross from Imax, for the exhib's largest opening share ever, with $10.3 million: Imax per-screen average was $44,000. Pic's Imax take even beat the $9.5 million bow for "Avatar," though it launched at 55 fewer Imax theaters.

It's no secret that 3D causes problems for a lot of people. Some people can't even see 3D, such as Cinemalogue's Rubin Safaya. But even Rubin, who gets a headache when attempting to watch any 3D movie admits that Tron: Legacy was better for him than most. He says, “I got a pretty intense headache with Avatar, I can tell you that. for the first 1/3rd of the film. Tron wasn't nearly that bad.” In part this may be because the opening minutes of the film are actually in 2D, which gives your eyes some relief before launching into all the 3D scenery. But for people who, unlike Rubin can see 3D, a lot of the time it has to do with brightness, and whether you have to strain to see the movie's 3D effects as they're projected. None of that's a problem with Tron: Legacy and, unless you're like Rubin odds are you won't have any problem with it at all. Even if you are like Rubin, it sounds like Tron: Legacy's 3D will treat you better than most. Leave the Tylenol at home.


To 3D Or Not To 3D: Buy The Right Tron: Legacy Ticket

'Tron' is tops at weekend B.O.

Who is Lenny Lipton?

Lipton wrote the lyrics to the song Puff the Magic Dragon in 1959.

He is also the most prolific inventor in the field of 3D video and film with at least 31 patents  and another 40 pending applications in the area of stereoscopic displays. Lipton almost single-handedly created the electronic stereoscopic display industry.

Starting  in 1980 he founded StereoGraphics Corporation and in  1981 was granted a patent the first flicker-free electronic stereoscopic display (U.S. Patent No. 4,523,226)


In 1996 he received an award from the Smithsonian Institution for this invention of CrystalEyes, the first practical electronic stereoscopic product for computer graphics and video applications. StereoGraphics was acquired by Real-D Cinema in 2005.

In July of 2007 Lipton was the featured physicist in Physics World magazine because of his contributions to stereoscopic displays.

Lipton served as Chief technical officer of RealD through 2008 and has  The RealD 3D system now showing in theaters uses technology he invented. It is based on the push-pull electro-optical modulator called the ZScreen. More recently, he left RealD to start a new venture, Oculus3D, that has developed a low-cost 3D theatrical format that works with the installed base of 35mm movie projectors.


LennyLipton.com

Wikipedia: Lenny Lipton

Oculus3d™ Announces 3D Projection Solution for Existing 35 Millimeter Film Projectors

Oculus3d™ Announces 3D Projection Solution for Existing 35 Millimeter Film Projectors

Oculus3D vies to be the greener solution in disposable 3D shades


The Stereoscopic Cinema:From Film to Digital Projection