[RED Hydrogen One Questions & Answers] TheMactrix:
I heard from the developer who is writing the software "H4V Image Tools". Information: H4V Image tools for RED Hydrogen One. He is really nice. I told him that people are desperately looking for something that will convert one format … the H4V format… into some other 3D format and back and that I was looking for something to convert photos from the old Lytro Lightfield camera into a Red Hydrogen One picture format.

An excerpt from his e-mails is below:

----------

Yes, we’re still developing H4VAPP!

It’s a bit of a “side project” so it tends to get the schedule pushed around.

For regular updates, please follow us on Facebook:

H4V Image Tools

H4V Image Tools. 69 likes. H4VAPP is a tool that bulk converts Lightfield images (aka Leia Image Format or H4V images, e.g.: fr

www.facebook.com

But I did update the license and add a requested feature back in November 2020, and I hope to make more progress in February 2021.

Due to the retirement of the RED Hydrogen One and the H4V file type, there is some re-branding also going on, and a new web site coming. Of course the product will be the same, and still support all the old file types.

H4VAPP already does what you describe.

It converts H4V format into Side-by-Side or separate L/R. It’ll also extract MPO’s. If there is a depth map it extracts that too. You can use the same command to convert side-by-side to H4V, though strictly speaking this is not necessary because the hydrogen and Leia hardware all read SBS OK. The Twin cameras on the H1 and LumePad hardware don’t include a ToF sensor, so there is no hardware based depth map. Any depth map from a LumePad or H1 is algorithmically derived from the SBS images. So therefore the depth map can be derived again from the SBS image. i.e.: the SBS image is the basis for everything else.

The very next thing I want to do is create MPO’s (aka Fuji) as an output format, since I think that’s considered a bit of a “standard” in the 3D world.

I guess in theory it should be possible to generate a depth map from a Lytro image and attach it to an image and you could then view that on Hydrogen or Leia hardware. It’s not a substitute for side-by-side. As I described above, without a ‘Right’ image, the H1/LumePad hardware is going to struggle. But with a single image and a depth map (aka iPhone/Google Phone) the Leia desktop software should be able to generate an H4V from it....

I would like to be able to generate iPhone compatible ‘portrait’/3D images from H4V. This would be a pre-requisite to doing anything with the Lytro AFAICT (see above).

----------

I am going to send him some "actual" Lytro Lightfield images taken with my camera. He said that demo images provided by a manufacturer are often slightly different than what the device actually produces. In the meantime, I am going to play around with his beta software and determine what is in the realm of possibility. The best thing is that the developer is working on the software still. The last part is obviously the Mac interface... but he is trying to get the functionality down pat first... the interface is the easy part. LOL.

Anyway... hopefully if you are reading this you will try the software and see if it fits your needs. More good news is that the developer says that "Any depth map from a LumePad or H1 is algorithmically derived from the SBS images. So therefore the depth map can be derived again from the SBS image. i.e.: the SBS image is the basis for everything else". I think I misspoke earlier in the post... I talked about 4 streams ... I think a better description is that you have 2 streams with the 2 other views decoded algorithmically as the file is decoded for play. Sorry for that distinction... but I think that is more correct... as the Red Hydrogen One uses 4V ... V as in views... for the Leia Lightfield display.

Hope this helps. I am going to determine for myself what my experience is with the phone when it arrives.

Any questions about my post, hit me up. ;-)