6.869 Advances in Computer Vision
Spring 2010

Pictures inside a camera obscura


Here are the pictures taken for the computer vision class. Pictures are taken with two constructions of the camera obscura: 1) The first construction corresponds to a traditional camera obscura where light enters a dark box via a single pinhole projecting an image into a wall. The pictures are taken with a digital camera with the lenses placed inside the box and pointing towards the wall on the oposite side to the pinhole. 2) The second construction is an anaglyph camera obscura that projects anaglyph stereo images. This construction is similar to the traditional camera obscura but now light enters the box via two nearby pinholes instead of just one. In order to create anaglyph images, two different color filters are placed in front of each pinhole. The result of this construction is that a double image appears projected on the back of the box. The double image is the sum of two colored images containing slightly different viewpoints of the scene in front of the pinholes. The 3D percept can be obtained by looking at the resulting double image with anaglyph glasses of the same color pair than the filters placed in front of each pinhole.

For more information: anaglyph.pdf, Building a camera obscura