Machine: Bubble Fisheye Camera & Typology: Selfie with Rich Context
The Machine will create portraits that are extracted from de-warped photographs of soap bubbles, which includes steps of: (1) Create Bubbles (2) Capture Bubbles (3) De-fishing Bubbles.
Bubbles are natural fisheye cameras that capture the colorful world around them. If we take a photo of a bubble with a camera, we will accidentally capture ourselves in the bubble. This gave rise to the idea of making a bubble capture machine, and the later interactive design of the project was influenced by portal picture 360 painting . I think fisheye cameras compress the rich content of the real world, and the process of viewing its image is a possibility of exploring changes from every parts.
I researched the formula for making giant bubble solution: it is
If you want to replicate giant bubbles, there are two tips: 1. The prepared solution must be left to stand for 24 hours. The longer the better the bubbles. 2. Compared with iron wire, cotton and linen ropes can be dipped into more solutions.
In order to verify the technical feasibility of defishing, we used a real mirror sphere for experiment. We tried and compared the Photoshop technology flow and the processing technology flow. Among them, Photoshop Adaptive Wide Angle: (1) Edge pixels are lost. (2) Customizable parameter adjustment capability is poor. Processing Programming: (1) Can obtain specific data from fisheye cameras (2) Customized adjustment parameters (3) More interactive when coding on one’s own. Therefore, I chose processing. The general idea is to extract the output photo pixels and map them back to 2D fisheye pixels from 3D space through triangular change mathematical calculations. Thanks to golan for figuring out the underlying principle with me. We tried different mathematical formulas and finally found the right one!!
Let me talk about the technical points of this pipeline: – Bubble Photograph setting: (1)Autofocus (2)Continuous shooting mode(3)High-speed shutter. – Programmable adjustable parameters: (1)thetaMax (2)Center of circle + Radius, which I drawn in the canvas dynamically. – De-fish Criteria: Refer to the original curves and straight lines in the real world. – Explore Interaction:(1)De-fisheye for different focus points based on the location of the user mouse (2)Print parameters.
Some objective challenges and solutions. A. Whether：I prepared the bubble water and waited for 24 hours to start one week in advance, however, it rains every day in Pittsburgh. If the wind is strong, the bubbles will burst, not to mention the rainy day, and to capture the reflection of the bubble, the requirement for sunlight is very high. So, I can only wait for the weather to be sunny. B. Photograph of Moving Bubbles：The first time I took a group of photos of bubbles, I found that the pixels of the photo were enough, but the bubbles would be blurred when I focused on them because they were always flying. Later, I used the continuous shooting mode, autofocus, and high-speed shutter, and finally take clear photos of the moving bubbles. C. Bubble Shape：Fisheye restoration hopes that the bubbles are round, but the bubbles are affected by gravity, the surface solution is uneven, and coupled with wind disturbances, round bubbles are really valuable. D. Unwarp Fisheye Image：Fisheye Mathematic and Processing. Thanks to Golan & Leo!!! 🙂
Surprise! The fisheye image captured by the bubble machine actually has two shadows of me. This is because the lower inverted image is from the bubble’s rear surface acting as a large concave mirror. However, the upper upright image is from the bubble’s front acting as a convex mirror!!
Some Findings: I.Round bubbles are better capture machines! II.Dark environments are better for capturing bubble images! III.Don’t blow bubbles too big, they will be deformed! From my perspective,
“Bubbles =Fisheye Camera + Prism Rainbow Filter for Selfie With Rich Context”
Firstly, The surface of the bubble can contain up to 150 unbalanced film layers, reflecting different colors of sunlight.Secondly, I like this capture machine because of its randomness: shooting angle, weather, bubble size and thickness will bring unexpected surprises to the final selfie!