3D Glasses Needed

With the stand built, remote trigger working and synchronisation tested, it's time to take some 3D pictures!

Left eye - Righty eye

"Third" eye :P

The process works. Time for actual science!

With the lenses 24cm apart it's a bit to much perspective for humans (at least for the object in the front). But for a computer, who knows.

Camera Synchronisation

And now, the whole adventure that was porting the CHDK comes to this, taking synchronised images from multiple cameras at once. But it's still not that simple!

First we need some more hardware that will trigger the cameras:

Build after schematics on CHDK wiki, the voltage trigger works.

But now it needs to be tested with two cameras, to see if the image acquisition is synchronised, so we need one more piece of hardware:

A true scrap heap project composed of an unused electric motor from a model plane, some spare electronic elements, a CD holder from an ancient MacBook's CD drive and a brand new DVD which was drilled trough so a LED and a battery was mounted on it.

With this the synchronisation wheel came to be. By using the known exposure values on the camera and tracing the light trail made by the LED, the rotational speed was calculated to about 10.36Hz.

Now with this information the synchronisation between the cameras can be calculated:

Taking the same picture with both cameras at the same time with the trigger, the angles from the start and en of the light trail can be measured and compared.

So far, the exposure time was the same and worst calculated delay between the cameras was 0.3ms. Not bad, but this may still vary a bit, since so far it has only been tested with few pictures and on one set of settings.

Eye in the Sky

The prototype is ready for testing!

Want to take 3D pictures? Then you need a 3D camera. Or two cameras in this case (even got the right colors).
Want to fly with this contraption? They it has to be as light as possible!

Two carbon fibre tubes, length 100cm and diameter 10mm. Drilled trough a plastic box for electric components for orientation (it's good if they are parallel to each other) and bonded together with layers of super glue. The movable mounting for the camera is (for now) composed of an old xBee break out board with a hole for a 1/4'' camera mounting screw. All attached to the tubes with "snail" clamp.

Yes, the last part needs some work before it will be light enough to put on an rc plane, but for testing on the ground this works just fine.

Transit of Venus

Some more fun you can have with your hacked camera. Take a picture of a once in a life time event!

How to take a picture of Venus passing in front of the Sun. Simple, buy two pairs of sunglasses from the 1€/1$/(insert your version here) shop, to make a scrapheap version of shading and a polarising filter. Attach said creation to the camera:

After that, abuse the settings for the lowest possible ISO and exposure settings:

 

Half a Sphere == Panorama

Yes, it's true. The 360° panorama lens is half a sphere coated in reflective material suspended above the camera.

Well, in this case, half a sphere coated in reflective material with a hole at the top, suspended above the camera with a mirror on top of it. But it makes pictures like this (mounted on the plane):

Now it needs some processing before it's something you can look at without getting a headache. So after relearning some of high school's math (if you ever wondered why do you need to know something in Cartesian and Polar coordinate systems, this is why) this is the result:

Hm, needs some more work.

Moving Pictures

Some more fun with CHDK!

Time lapse of the stars from my window. Twenty second exposure per frame, 360 frames. That's how long the battery held on my Canon's A2200.

Puzzle Pieces

Wings are done, now to attach the detachable holder with the 360° panoramic lens.