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.

fxguide article

"Ocula is at the very heart of the new post-production tools that have emerged to deal with stereo. Nuke and Ocula were used extensively on Avatar, and we explore the lessons learned with Simon Robinson, Chief Scientist of the Foundry. Ocula, in particular, is a real partnership between filmmakers on the cutting edge and the UK software developer.". Read the full fxguide article.

Ocula Demo

Simon Robinson, The Foundry's Chief Scientist, demonstrated Ocula to FX Guide's John Montgomery at IBC 2008. Download the video.

OCULA is available for the following platforms:

• NUKE