It is summer and I am once again spending some time in our basement, setting things up for a stop motion shoot. I have an idea what I want to create, which may involve melting 3D prints.

Today I build the first version of a stereo camera rig. I am using two Logitech Brio 4K cameras, which I acquired with funds from a creativity and research grant I received from my employer, Monmouth University. A while ago I had build a similar rig using two HD video cameras, which worked fine but I never found a good use for it. I had planned to shoot an actor for a short explanation video to be used in VR.Con.Sequence, but I ended up using AI motion capture, heavily edited, applied to a 3D character rig. Some stereoscopic stop motion footage is included in that project, which was shot using a motion control rig which I had borrowed from my colleague prof. Dickie Cox.

I have not tested this new rig yet, but it might work. I did run into some issues putting it together. The corner braces I bought at Home Depot turned out to have an angle slightly under 90 degrees. I added some rings to make the upright parts parallel, but now the centers of the lenses are slightly off.

Why fasten the second corner brace with clamps and not screws you may ask. This allows me to vary the distance between the cameras. And changing this distance will change the apparent scale of the objects photographed: the closer together the lenses, the bigger the objects will appear to be.

I may have to 3D print some kind of enclosure to perfectly align the two cameras. To still be able to vary the distance between the cameras I may have to create multiple enclosures with varying width, or find a way to make that width adjustable. I have already started modeling a simple enclosure, but first I should test what I have now, to evaluate how critical alignment is for what I am hoping to achieve.