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Single device usage

Wide Stereo was developed to pursue the unique stereoscopic world view, made possible by merging live views from two distant locations. However, it very quickly became apparent that in practice there are many more opportunities to take interesting but more ordinary stereoscopic photos for which one camera is enough, without involving another person.

This is done using the Half button, which literally takes "half a picture" of a stereoscopic photo (that is, a photo from one eye), replacing the temporarily absent second device. The rest of the picture-taking process proceeds as normal, so the actual photo is produced only when the normal Shoot button is clicked. In the meantime, the normal left/right image adjustment is going on all the time and its effect is visible in real time.

The order of operations:
- Half (temporarily storing the image from one eye)
- move the phone
- Shoot (finalizing the picture)

Note that the shape of the Half icon is a reminder of which eye is taking this half of the photo - left or right. As with the live view, the Side button decides which eye we are with at the moment. If Half shows the right half of the circle, it means that clicking it remembers the right view, so after clicking it you have to move the camera to the left in order to add the left view with the Shoot button and get the correct stereoscopic effect.
If we swap sides with the Side button, of course, everything is reversed: click on Half showing the left half - move to the right - click Shoot.

More about taking stereoscopic photos

A buddy from the past

By moving more or less perpendicular to the viewing direction, we can even get a continuous live stereoscopic effect, using what we recorded moments earlier as the image source for the other eye. Then that second person with the other iPhone is yourself from the past! 😉
This function is enabled by the Timeshift button.
The standard one-second delay gives, at the speed of a normal walk, say 1 m/s, a stereoscopic base of one meter, that is an increase of over 10 times. Clearly, faster vehicles combined with a slight increase of the timeshift delay would be enough to achieve a factor of 1000x.


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