Vive Pro dual camera capture for Stereoscopic content

[joesipaq]

Hello! I have done some research into it, but am struggling in getting OBS software (or any) to capture both the left and right camera of the Vive pro.
I understand that their resolution is quite low - which is sad - but wanted to make some 3D content from my point of view and also from some other angles.

The 2 things I would like to accomplish are
1. Pass-through video to the headset from the two cameras on the front - this could be (may be best) if it is just an reproduction from OBS in stereo mode, separate windows to separate eyes, or could be natively passed through - eluding into the objective 2

2. Use other live cameras in the room as eye inputs reproduced on the vive pro - per say, a 3d microscope with 2 different cameras. (as I wont be able to mash my face up to the oculars, I want to have 2 separate cameras mounted for this so I wont need to remove the headset)

I would like to be able to switch between different views/what I am seeing and recording, so I feel best would be to use a 3rd party capture software like OBS to toggle between scenes or different cameras, but as i will be working with my hands quite a bit, I would like to have my more natural POV for when picking up tweezers, adjusting microscopes and such.

This will be for a fun project making some 3d content to experience more what I do for a living. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Please let me know if there are some things confusing about this, as I have the vision in my head, but am struggeling explaining all the technicalities of it.

[HackPerception]

1. If you're trying to replay this within an HMD - I would highly advise against trying to playback video captured from a head mount back to a user within VR. That's going to lead to motion-sickness in a significant portion of people. If you're just trying to capture the output - you can use the settings I posted below and enter "room view" by doubletapping the system button. That said, it will show some of the distortion. You may be able to use something like the SRWorks SDK to try and get each individual feed but that would require a custom Unity project. Overall - if you're trying to make something for viewing within a headset - I would recommend instead to look at proper VR180 cameras - they're not that pricey and the quality jump will be huge.

2. You'd have to achieve this using a custom game engine project. I think the general idea is that you'd pipe a camera stream to each respective eye using using a render mask or something of the sort. I aware of some roboticists and the like who've created custom setups that allow them to control robots in other rooms with stereo-view but I'm not familiar with their specific implementations. It's not a common-use case and thus the online resources for this kind of thing will be thin and most of this falls in the realm of custom work.

In either case, it sounds like you're looking at needing to make your own custom software. But if the goal is to show people "what you do" in first person VR, I still think a stationary VR180 camera is going to be the way most immersive video professionals would steer you towards for a huge variety of reasons with the primary being user comfort and watchibility.

 

 

[joesipaq]

1 hour ago, VibrantNebula said:

1. If you're trying to replay this within an HMD - I would highly advise against trying to playback video captured from a head mount back to a user within VR. That's going to lead to motion-sickness in a significant portion of people. If you're just trying to capture the output - you can use the settings I posted below and enter "room view" by doubletapping the system button. That said, it will show some of the distortion. You may be able to use something like the SRWorks SDK to try and get each individual feed but that would require a custom Unity project. Overall - if you're trying to make something for viewing within a headset - I would recommend instead to look at proper VR180 cameras - they're not that pricey and the quality jump will be huge.

 

Thank you so much for getting back to me so fast! I will look into a VR180 set up, I am only seeing 3 cameras atm, one being about $3k and the other 2 being well, disasters from what I can find? The Mirage Camera with Daydream looks kinda promising if I can get my hands on one. Are there any others you know of that you could recommend in the 100-200 range? 
Fortunately I am not one of the population that really is affected by motion sickness, my wife on the other hand for sure is. So I can understand that idea. I was imagining some Picture in Picture modes to help off-set the motion sickness aspect. A solid Microscope that doesn't move much with maybe with a large grid that doesn't move at all, and also then a smaller in picture showing my "eyes"

 

1 hour ago, VibrantNebula said:

2. You'd have to achieve this using a custom game engine project. I think the general idea is that you'd pipe a camera stream to each respective eye using using a render mask or something of the sort. I aware of some roboticists and the like who've created custom setups that allow them to control robots in other rooms with stereo-view but I'm not familiar with their specific implementations. It's not a common-use case and thus the online resources for this kind of thing will be thin and most of this falls in the realm of custom work.

In either case, it sounds like you're looking at needing to make your own custom software. But if the goal is to show people "what you do" in first person VR, I still think a stationary VR180 camera is going to be the way most immersive video professionals would steer you towards for a huge variety of reasons with the primary being user comfort and watchibility.

So it sounds like, I am going to make my own game eh? And by game I mean my own software with virtual camera setups so I can program them in. I would guess I will have to recreate my work environment in VR/Unity or import it form autocad or such, as I already at one point made my office furniture to be custom built. I guess this is going to turn into a real fun hobby project!

Could you see a reason why I would want to do a 180degree cam instead of a 360 cam?  The reason I would want the camera inputs to my Vive Pro eyes, is that my microscope is Trifocal, but really only one is designated for a camera... If i actually wanted to do work, I would need to see through the two eye pieces at the same time for depth, and since i am recording it, I would need to see in 3D basically in real time what i am recording. So i guess that would be more of a "use vive as a monitor for each camera"

I will look around in the SRWorks SDK to see what I can do for the individual feeds and how i can use Unity or something to feed them back into the vive headset. I'm sure ill have some sort of a stream deck to help out with changing out between my microscope view and my vive view. I am wondering if ill have to slap the VR180 cams on the front for high enough resolution to get work done and see what I'm picking up with microscopes. Then to see if i will need a second computer to offset the bandwidth needed by all the cameras haha.

Any other ideas pop to your mind?

I really appreciate it!