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If you have all your hardware ready (PC, cameras, cables) and completed installation of Forma Studio, you’re now ready to position and calibrate your cameras. Before doing so, you’ll want to consider the following:
- You should set up your camera indoors only. Direct sunlight contains infrared wavelengths which will contaminate the depth sensor quality of the recommended cameras (Intel Realsense D415/D455) and deteriorate the quality of your hologram.
- You should ensure your cameras/stage are as static as possible. This means cameras should be secured to rigid fixtures/stands set on solid ground or mounted to walls and ideally away from foot traffic so people don’t accidentally touch and displace cameras.
- You should ensure good uniform lighting. Like any photo/video media, natural uniform lighting around the studio subject will ensure better results.
- You should ensure you have a Forma Vision Calibration Board or Calibration Box ready to complete Studio calibration. You may purchase a Calibration box directly from us [here] or a Calibration board from an approved vendor [here]. If you prefer to print your own calibration board, you may use this calibration marker graphic [here]. The black and white graphic should be printed on a flat, rigid, matte surface and be at least 18in by 24in in size. If printing your own, we recommend printing the graphic on a thick poster board material at a local print shop.
Camera positioning
6 camera Studio arrangement:
[animation video]
2 camera Workplace arrangement:
[animation video]
Additional camera positioning tips:
- Ensure that your cameras are visualizing the holographic subject as much as possible, this means that your cameras should not be unnecessarily visualizing too much of the floor or ceiling. For this reason we recommend starting the calibration workflow when positioning cameras to can see and adjust the field of view of each camera in realtime. You may need to adjust the camera height, camera angle, or camera-to-subject distance to achieve an optimal setup.
[image of calibration app]
- Ensure that you are alternating the camera orientations. Because the camera IR emitter is not perfectly centered between the IR emitters, there is an effect known as a “stereo shadow” that will cause some blind spots in the camera depth maps. Alternating your camera orientations will minimize this effect.
- Avoid placing a light source directly in the line of sight of a camera and a hologram subject. Ideally place light sources as “off screen” as possible to avoid “camera blooming”.
Calibrating cameras
Box calibration:
[animation video]
Board calibration:
[animation video]
Once completed, your hologram quality should look something like this:
[image of 2 camera quality] [image of 6 camera quality]