creating stereoscopic 3d images on linux with image magick montage
Some nights ago I was talking with the Kensington Donkey Gang over some cheap beer and smokes.. and it came up about stereoscopic photography.
This is when you take two pictures of something, as your eyes might see it.
Essentially you create 3d images with your camera.
I tried this out with success.
1) TAKING THE PICTURES
A hint for when you take the two pictures- don’t space them apart too much.
2) CREATING THE STEREOSCOPIC IMAGE
I was curious about streamlining the process on my linux box.
Screw opening two images in the gimp and drawing a line between! Too much work!
Of course…. image magick to the rescue.
Use imagemagick’s montage command.
In this case.. the originals are 1200×1600.
montage -geometry 1200x1600+10+10 -background black -bordercolor black leftimage.jpg rightimage.jpg stereoscopicimage.jpg
3) VIEWING THE IMAGE ON YOUR MONITOR
Use something like gqview. Zoom out so the image is small.
It’s a pity the image has to be small because you see less detail, but it must be so… otherwise your eyes won’t cut it.

You can read more about stereoscopic images here:
The art of stereo photography.
Photography techniques: aerial stereoscopic photography.

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