How to create a stereo fractal 3D using MandelBulb3D and SPM

- S. Rathinagiri ( srathinagiri@gmail.com )

Welcome to this basic tutorial for rendering stereo fractals using MandelBulb3D software
along with Stereo Photo Maker software. This tutorial neither explains about how to create
wonderful fractals using MandelBulb3D nor explains about how to create stereo images using
Stereo Photo Maker software. Both of these software products are having so many options to
ponder which can not be covered in a single tutorial. However this tutorial will help you if you can
create stunning fractals in MandelBulb3D and want to render those fractals in 3D and export in
various famous stereo formats like anaglyph.

Thank you for reading this tutorial and I have to thank first those who have created these
wonderful software products namely Jesse (MandelBulb3D software) and Masuiji SUTO and
David Sykes (Stereo Photo Maker)

Software required:

1. MandelBulb3D (Freeware and now open source)

2. Stereo Photo Maker (Freeware, shortly called SPM)

Stereo 3D an introduction:

If you know about stereo3D already, please skip this portion.

Stereo3D images are a realistic means of giving real depth to pictures so that the human
eye / brain / mind has a strong sensation of depth as it would when looking with two eyes at the real
world. In all cases there are two images which must be fed independently to the two eyes of the
person viewing them. The technique of doing that is what makes the methods different.

This can be achieved in 3 ways - with red-green or red-cyan anaglyphs, cross-eye and
parallel viewing. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. Glasses are needed for red-green
or red-cyan anaglyphs, and the other methods can be viewed without equipment (or with a different
type of glasses for each for ease of viewing). (Thanks to Ray Tomes)

Stereo3D images require two images to be blended together, being one for the left eye and
another for the right eye.

MandelBulb3D and Stereo Photo Maker, a perfect pair to create stereo 3D fractals:

MandelBulb3D is a versatile 3D fractal rendering software which has the options to render
left and right eye images to create stereo images. Stereo Photo Maker is a wonderful software which
can be used to fuse the two images created using MandelBulb3D and save the stereo3D image in
any viewing method. (cross view, parallel, anaglyph or universal view combining all the methods)
Rendering stereo images in MandelBulb3D:

Step 1. Start MandelBulb3D software and load your favorite parameter:

Note: Before rendering the fractal in stereo please make sure you have set all the lighting, fog,
shadow and Depth of Field settings.

For this tutorial, I have used the following parameters:

Mandelbulb3Dv18{
g.....S...U1/...w....2....UhVa9Dk/qrzSQIoVJiX8wj1dPdo0xmwynHpJcy9AIszMBkkGubAnxj
................................37wtt8TnK/2........A.BJ.................y.2...wD
...Uz6.....2.....w.0/.....E63...f0....E5.....McwPWK5DakD/w.........m/dkpXm1....U
z.EnAnQD12../.............................................U0.....y1...kD...Uz...
.
w1...sDLLUHTTIU7wHDushBWh1Xysk5.zS63egjidgEHtZOGunQ9sTFP8I0z2GbK0ZwbwhDug
KSxBdS
8vX.zSXrkcmryOfDVQbloYkDU.....2A....a..........E02....sD..G.....................
.............oAnAt1...sD....zw1.........................................G....k1.
.....Ksulz1.....31kz.wzzz1.i.c1.o....M2...UA....m....24...kE....4/...EJB...UVx5I
d..U.W1KEyzlciszsU3YzTAe906.2c..zzSi...MarH7iXyD6oa4dabdnz1..........2E.8..IsY0.
.MdMN9PJKz1.dHh18A7uz0........../6U0.wzzz1...........s/...................E.0c..
zzzz............x/...................2U.8.kzzzD............8....................
/6U0.wzzz1...................................shqX0UoG1BEMzUrOD8.7bAk.Zv5Sfxc.k6X
002ZjshqX0EucHBEBuXrOD8.jzSt.pTGSfxc..2Ex.oGJthqX0UrQz9EU0arOD8.lzyp.t.PSfxc.Qjx
d12XrthqX0UyuHDE...cU08czz/cU08cyz1cU08cxz3cU08c................................
E../.AU.V2E.....I....c....EHZtqNZ7rA..pPrJaQ..............................U/4MU/
4M.................../........zD...................wz0..........................
................................................................................
...........................3..../....wZFjl4NdtqNl...............................
.............................UsD.......ED02.....................................
................................................................................
................................/....E/..../....TNoPgFKOiRKGiNKS................
.....................................................oAnAnAnAHxD................
................................................................................
............................................}
{Titel: fractal20151102}
Step: 2. Select STEREO tab in the MandelBulb3D main window as in the picture below:

Step: 3. Assign the values for the Screen Distance, Image Width and Minimal Distance:

These are the default values given in the MandelBulb3D software. Let us see the answers for the
following questions:

1. What are these values?

2. How will they affect my stereo image?
3. Will the default values work for all the stereo images?
1. What are these values?

Thanks to this article, we can easily understand what these values denote.

Screen Distance: It is the distance between your eyes and the background screen (actually the
farthest or most distant area in our fractal)

Image Width: It is the proportional width of the image you are going to view in 3D.

Minimal Distance: It is the shortest distance between your eyes and the fractal.

2. How will they affect my stereo image?

Screen distance and the minimal distance values play a vital role in our final stereo image.

If the screen distance and minimal distance are the same, it would be just a 2D image. It
means that the farthest and shortest points are one and the same and the fractal is having no depth at
all!

If the minimal distance is nearing zero, it means that the Z plane of the fractal is just
touching your eyes!

So, the minimal distance value shall always be between 0 and the screen distance value.
3. Will the default values work for all the stereo images?

Unfortunately, the answer for the above question is negative. From my experience, I have
found that the default values of 2, 1.0 and 1.5 are not suitable for rendering a good stereo fractal for
regular viewing in the monitor or printing.

The following values are suitable for most of the fractals.

In some fractals where the background is the sky (going towards infinity) and the fractal of a
huge depth is placed in front of the sky, we can't feel the depth using the above values. In such
cases, you can decrease the minimal distance from 0.4 to 0.2 and increase the screen distance also.

Step: 4 Stereo Rendering:

Before rendering the big stereo images we can render prototype stereo images to correct the
above values, there by saving the over all render time. For example, for this tutorial I use the
resolution of 480 * 270 to start with. My final stereo image would have the size of 4800 * 2700 to
be better viewed in 1920 * 1080 monitors.

Now click 'Calculate Left Eye' button and render the left eye image.
After rendering the left eye image, save the image in bitmap format as 'left.bmp'

Same way, click 'Calculate right eye' button, render the right eye image and save the image in
bitmap format as 'right.bmp'

After verifying whether this prototype images work good, please do the above step with the bigger
resolution again for the final images.

Step 5: Open SPM and load the images left.bmp and right.bmp

Now open Stereo Photo Maker software and load the left and right images. See the image
below:
Select both the images in the selection window and click open.
Step: 6 Aligning Left and Right images:

Click 'Adjust' and 'Auto Alignment' or press Alt+A key as seen in the image below to align
the images automatically by SPM to recitfy any horizontal, vertical or sizing violations. Most of the
times MandelBulb3D software renders perfect stereo pair. So don't worry about these violations.

Step 7: Adjust for window violations:

If you are new to 3D photography, you may not be aware of this element, but it's important.
When you put a pair of images together and view them in 3D- you will notice that the edges, or
boundary of the image will form a front plane, or frame. It appears as if you are viewing the image
through a window (hence the term "stereo window"). Ideally, you should left-right adjust your
images by trimming the edges so that features at the front of your picture (usually at the bottom
unless you are doing something funky) are equal distances from the left/right boundaries. (Thanks
to Jeff )

Window violations will ruin our stereo images. For comfortable viewing we should avoid
window violations. How to do that?

We have to superimpose both the images one after another and adjust the images so as to
make the areas crossing the boundaries ON the boundaries. SPM is really helpful in this regard. Let
me explain this with our sample image.

Click 'Adjust' → 'Easy Adjustment' in SPM. You will get the following window:
 Note the edges especially top and bottom. If you wear an anaglyph glass and see this image
you can see that the fractal is far below the top and bottom edge for this image.

You can adjust the H Position above to move this in Z plane. See the image below with a
window violation: (It looks as if the fractal has pierced the boundaries and not comfortable to view)
 This one is the optimum H position as both the left and right eye images are placed in the
right position so as to keep the fractal coming through the screen but without affecting the top and
bottom borders.

Of the above three images, this is the best one and optimum to view in 3D.

Step 8: Save the stereo image in various formats:

After seeing that our prototype works well, we can render the final stereo images for left and
right eye as in Step 4 above and follow the Step 4 to Step 8 again with the final resolution, 4800 *
2700 in my case.

Now we can save this stereo image in various formats. Universal view format is the all-in-
one format which can be viewed in anaglyph view, cross view and parallel view methods.

It is now in parallel view and you can save as is by pressing S (save in stereo format).
Parallel view images are suitable to be viewed in VR glasses/Google Card Board.
To save in universal view create an anaglyph image by clicking the anaglyph tool as below:

Save the image in Universal View as seen below:

Step 9: Post processing if any:

After saving the stereo image you can do some post processing if you wish. Brightness,
contrast and saturation adjustments are available in SPM itself and will be applied simultaneously
on left and right eye images.

Tips for a better anaglyph fractal:

If you save the stereo fractal in anaglyph format (which is the cheapest and famous method
of viewing 3D content as of now) please consider the following:

- Don't have red or cyan based color in your fractal as they will look flat in your final image!
- Don't have bright white color like lights, volumetric rays as they will also ruin the image.
- Choose a fractal which has lower parallax (fractals having relatively lesser depth) since with huge
depths, some parts of your image will look ugly by anyway you align the images.

That is all and now you are ready to share your stereo fractals. This is how my final render
looks like.
Links:

1. MandelBulb Maniacs group in Facebook

2. My stereo fractals website
3. 3D Photo Forum
4. Phereo.com
5. Fractal Forums