Fisheye correction in MEP 2014?

terrypin wrote on 1/6/2015, 2:45 AM

My CUBE digicam is quite handy because of its tiny size. The quality of its 1920x1080 video isn't too bad either. But I would like to be able to correct (or partially correct) its fisheye distortion, as in the example below. I can do that easily for its photos (using PaintShop Pro or IrfanView), but video is the problem.

I'm wondering if anyone knows if i can use MEP's 3D Distortion dialogue to do so with video clips?

Or for better quality: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP2014-FishEyeCorrection.jpg

So far, playing with various XY values for some or all of the four corners hasn't delivered a winning combination. Or maybe there's some other effect in MEP's large repertoire that might help?

Yes, I know you MEP 2015 users apparently have a new feature that does the job...

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 1/6/2015, 8:00 AM

Hi Terry

The 3D distortion is unfortunately a 'linear' adjustment and does not take into account the curvature of the image.

The curvature is worse when objects are close to the camera and I never successfully removed the distortion from close up video using MEP 2014.

MEP 2015, as you have said, does have correction for Fish Eye specifically for sportscams and works exceedingly well.

John

terrypin wrote on 1/6/2015, 8:39 AM

Thanks John. Oh well, I suspected as much. One more factor to motivate my PC upgrade I suppose!

Scenestealer wrote on 1/6/2015, 4:07 PM

Hi Terry

The New Blue Video Essentials > Fisheye Effect can be reversed to correct this. I think it was bundled with MEP2013 Premium.

Peter

terrypin wrote on 1/7/2015, 10:33 AM

Hi Peter,

Thanks! Playing with that now and looks as if it will be very useful once I get the hang of finding the 'right' sort of compromise.

Scenestealer wrote on 1/10/2015, 4:09 AM

Hi Terry

One thimg I have found is, that because the edge of the frame becomes pincushioned after correction, the program fills in the missing image with a blurry facsimilie of the image which remains even if you apply a subsequent size/position zoom effect. The only way around this is to export the clip after the fisheye correction, and then replace the object on the timeline with the export, and then zoom in.

Cheers

Peter

johnebaker wrote on 1/10/2015, 5:13 AM

Hi Terry, Peter

What controls does the New Blue Essentials Fisheye Effect have? In MEP 2015 there are Lens, Perspective and Zoom.

After a lot of experimenting I find these are best used as follows:

Adjust the Lens option to get verticals as straight as possible
Adjust the Perspective to stop buildings 'falling over' without over doing it - see (a) below
Tweak the Lens / Perspective again if needed.
Adjust the Zoom if renecessary see (b) below

Note:

(a) The image must look natural. Making the sides of a building, for example, perfectly parallel makes you feel the building is leaning towards you and looks wrong.

(b) The zoom and perspective do remove a lot of the edges of the image as shown below, this has to be taken into account when taking the photo/video where possible.

In the case of the example below from my sportscam I could not get any further away from the buildings as this was a narrow street ~ 20ft (6m) wide. Camera was set to 120 deg view - 170 deg was too extreme !

Example