Sensio format?

I came across some stereo still images that were side by side, but horizontally squashed. People looked unnaturally thin, as they might in a fun house mirror. The original aspect ratio was vertical, similar to Stereo Realist slides, but the images were distorted as described.

I could not find any setting in Stereo Photo Maker that would render them naturally. I had a trial version of something called Stereoscopic Player, which looked to be primarily for video. But when opening the files as Sensio, they came out just fine -- stretched horizontally to natural proportions. Stereoscopic Player is 40 Euros, and I don't view that many images in that format.

Is there something I could use occasionally to view these images?

"Horizontally squished" stereo digital files is a common video "format" used, but is very uncommon for stills.  For video, it is a step that helps compress the file by at least 50%, with the playback device re-stretching the image back to "normal".

I have to ask, why bother with storing still images in this format?  You are throwing information away doing so...

The same principle applies to storing stereo stills in anaglyph format.  You throw away a portion of color information residing in the full the stereo pair.  While some color information can be recovered by software, some cannot.

The BEST way to store a stereo image for display is a full size undistorted side-by-side (or above-below) pair.  Period.

Turbguy1 wrote:

The BEST way to store a stereo image for display is a full size undistorted side-by-side (or above-below) pair. Period.

Hi, Are you saying to use the "mpo" format, or something else?

Specifically, in StereoPhotoMaker, save your stereo image with
"Save MPO File". When opening the mpo file in IE or Firefox you get a
single (jpg) image. Perhaps this is good for sharing your mpo image online? However when you open it in SPM, you get two side-by-side images - suitable for SPM processing.

Is there another way that you would recommend? - John S.

MPO is fine. The pair is un-distorted and saved as a special type of jpeg that fully preserves the left and right views.  As you point out, some applications don't display an MPO file correctly.  They show only one side of the pair.

A side-by-side (or above-below) jpeg does the same. All the info is there (excepting compression effects of using a "lossy" jpeg file, rather that TIFF or other uncompressed or loss-less file type).  Saved this way, many more applications will open and display both sides.

The file type you save is your choice. Just don't throw pixels away with "squeezing" or "squishing".