Ianz Trainz - Trainz Models

Tutorial 5: Making Stereo Pictures from Trainz Screenshots

Introduction

Have you seen stereo pictures and wondered how to make them? Well it is quite easy to make similar pictures from Trainz Screenshots. Of course not everyone can see the 3d stereo effects from pictures, but they are just another interesting facet in recording your work using pictures. You might like to try the following ideas.

The tutorial explains what equipment you need, how to make the pictures, and gives ideas to make other stereo pictures with a digital cameras.

Background and Equipment

There are two main types of stereo pictures, I will cover those using viewing lenses or glasses made from red and blue translucent material, commonly know as "Cellophane". The first type is the side by side images, viewed with a viewer using an optical lens for each eye. These viewers may be available, the images need to be sized to suit any viewer you can acquire. The picture consists of two images as below, each taken from a slightly different angle to make the stereo effect. It is normal to take an image with a camera, and to move the camera sideways the width to match the spacing of the eyes, about 80 mm (measure a pair of spectacles), then take a second image. Of course you can use wider spacings than that, it will enhance or exacerbate the stereo effect, experiment.

I had obtained a pair of lenses that focused at about 230 mm and made my own viewer to suit, see below:

The second format for stereo pictures is the familiar red / green haloed images, anaglyphs. These images are overlaid on each other, as shown below and require a different colored lens for each eye to create the stereo or 3d image. The picture is of the rail bridge found in the Maglev map in TRS2006, if you have the red / green glasses try them out. Move your head from side to side.

A viewer for such images may be available at toy stores, but can certainly be found on the internet. It is not difficult to make your own from suitable materials. The design would be as shown below, using the red lens over the left eye.

For the first type of stereo imaging, with separated images, it is just a matter of taking two images, arranging them side by side and printing at a suitable scale. For the Analglyph images, you need software to combine the two images and "tint" them to the correct colors. This is available, a free program, StereoPhoto Maker by Masuji Suto is excellent. You will also find a number of other interesting programs on the web page reference above.

Two files are in a zip, just extract to a directory of your choice, there is no install program or procedure required. When you wish to use it, just open that directory and double click the stphmkre.exe file to start the program.

Decide on a view in Surveyor or Driver that will show the stereo effect to best advantage. The bridge from the Maglev map is a good example. You need to capture two screenshots, spaced a little apart. In Surveyor, you will find it best to generally compose the image, then hold the Alt key down while typing fly on the keyboard in TRS2004, or using Alt u in TRS2006. This puts you in a viewing mode, and removes the compass amd menus. If you use the Alt o keys, you can remove the spline circles, and the red and green arrows above rollingstock for a clean image. You can then move the viewpoint reasonably accurately using the cursor keys, the PageUp and PageDown keys, and the mouse scroll.

Take a Screenshot by pressing the Print Screen key, this will be the left hand picture (decide on a standard, take the left shot first then the right shot to make it easy to identify later). This is automatically copied to the clipboard and to the Screenshots directory in your installation of Trainz. Press the Right Cursor key to move the viewpoint a short distance to the right, it is not possible to specify an exact distance, but a quick tap on the key is sufficient.

Do not use any other keys. The viewpoint will smoothly move to the right, so take another screenshot, this will be the right hand image. For the second picture it is important not to tilt the viewpoint otherwise the picture pair will be misaligned vertically, requiring adjustment later.

Find the pictures, in the C:\Program Files\Auran\TRS2006\ScreenShots directory for TRS2006, they will be tga format and the resolution and size will match your Trainz display settings, and could be quite large. Convert the pictures into bmp of tiff files preferably, so you do not lose any quality, remember every time you save a jpeg file, you lose more picture quality, unless you have the quality set for the highest file size, so generally save only the final result as a jpg file. If you do not have Photoshop or Paint Shop pro for picture management, a useful free program for this file conversion is IrfanView. Move the files to your Stereo picture working directory.

Open the StereoPhoto Maker program. There are a number of ways to load pictures, for this example we need to load both the left and the right picture together. You can do this from the drop down menu, but you will find the al;ternate icon in the Top Menu useful, use the Open Left and Right Image.

You will be presented with a file load dialogue box. Hold down the Shift key and click on the left picture them the right picture, then Open. This loads both files together, ready for editing. Note that Trainz increments the number for each Screenshot, and you know that the first picture is the Left hand picture. You can swap the left and right if necessary, during loading. In the example below I am using high quality jpeg files.

The picture below shows the StereoPhoto Maker program with two pictures taken of the Maglev Station, loaded together, note the different viewing angle of the right hand picture due to the sideways movement between Screenshots in Surveyor, which will give the 3d effect.

Because the alignment is accurate from the Screenshots taken in the manner described, you do not have to correct any tilt or vertical misalignment. These pictures may be printed or saved as is, to suit the side by side viewer, you will of course need to decide on a size to suit the viewer you might have available.

To make the colored Anaglyph picture, you can open the Stereo drop down menu and choose an option to process the two pictures into one, the Optimized option has been ticked below, the red/cyan color may better match your glasses, the Ghost-reduced option might be useful, experiment.

The two images are merged into one by the program and given the characteristic red ghosting colors.

It is important to keep the two images aligned, to minimise adjustments later. You can of course take the left picture, then move your head and the camera to the right about 80 mm, then take the right picture. It is difficult to keep the camera aligned correctly, so a tripod with a sliding bracket is a good way to achieve this.

I have used the bracket below to mount the camera on a sliding shoe in the aluminum channel, for table top model pictures. It is quite easy to move the camera the required distance (slide the shoe), but a similar bracket mounted on a rigid tripod would be used for outside photography, for best results. Even so, there will usually be some adjustment required to align the pictures. The StereoPhoto Maker program makes this quite easy. There are a number of controls that align the pictures.

Adjustments may not be necessary for the images from Trainz, the alignment is quite good. For other images, after loading the two images, adjust the important foreground parts of each image. In the picture below, the handrail is in the foreground, and only slightly out of alignment. Choose the alignment mode icon in the top menu (or Ctrl a), then click two points in the left diagram then the same two corresponding points in the right diagram, follow the order shown. Cross hairs will indicate your choices. When click 4 is completed, the images will be moved or rotated automatically so the chosen points align in each image. As you see these images are very close to correct as is.

The background may still be out of alignment, but it is important to choose critical foreground points to adjust. If you choose one point in the foreground and the other in the background, the program will try to "take out" the perspective difference in the pictures, by straightening the images incorrectly.

You may also choose the Drop down menu from the Top Adjust menu to select different ways to adjust the images, choices are shown below. If the images seem to be incorrect after this process, undo the operation and retry. Notice the tree in the foreground cannot be aligned correctly (seems to be a couple of typos in the menu

You should save the stereo pictures in both formats, the side by side one and the Anaglyph format. If you need to redo the Anaglyph, you will need the separated images, you cannot re separate the Anaglyph images to get the original separated images back.
Pictures with predominately red colors do not make good colors in Anaglyph format, as the red lens filters out the colors.
If the stereo image is saved from the StereoPicture Maker program as jpeg files they can be viewed correctly in other programs, like ACDsee, however loading the saved file into Paint Shop seems to change the colors, destroying the stereo effect. You can copy the image directly from the program and paste into Paint Shop to retain the correct colors. The better procedure is to use other higher quality file formats.

Summary

The StereoPhoto Maker has many options to make the pictures, it is very versatile and easy to use. The pictures used in these examples are only early experiments, I am sure they can be improved by experimenting with the processing options. Please experiment to achieve the best results.

Anaglyphic 3D Glasses

Red / Cyan

These are the most commonly used, showing a brighter 3D image but may interfere with some colors in images. Typical use includes movies, books, magazines, images, the internet and games.

Red / Blue

These use a blue colored lens for the right eye, making 3D images look darker, but improving image color and can be easier on the eyes. Use includes books, magazines, images and the internet, but not usually used for 3D movies.

Red / Green

These use a green colored lens for the right eye. Red / Green lenses provide a brighter view and improve 3D image quality for anaglyph images produced in grayscale. Use may also include books, magazines, images and the internet, again, not used for 3D movies.

References

StereoPhoto Maker - the program to create the images in the tutorial - here.

IrfanView - free Graphic creation and Image manipulation program - here.

Dr. Imre Zsolnai-Nagy from Hungary has excellent stereo picture examples and tutorials - here.

Ian Manion (Vulcan) October 2005