Ubuntu – How to view VR (virtual reality) 3D Video on a standard 2D screen in Ubuntu

3dvideo

I have a 3D video that I believe was recorded with a GoPro 360 setup. I would like to be able to share the content with those who don't have VR headgear so I need a way to view it on a 2D screen. How can I accomplish this with Ubuntu? (I'm using 16.04 Xenial if that makes a difference)

Best Answer

One way would be to obtain the GoPro VR Player which is currently available free in a deb package here The latest version available for Linux is 2.3.1 - 2017-05-19 which is distributed under v.2.1 or any later version of the GPL at your option It's built on libvlc. This version doesn't seem to require monkeying with any settings to get good results. You can toggle fullscreen simply by pressing F and although videos launch dead center split, simply hitting the <- or -> key or selecting Camera -> Left or Right from the menu will give you a 2D view of the 3D video.

Direct link to 64 bit deb package (37.55MB) Tested on Ubuntu 16.04.3 kernel 4.4.0-112

Another way to accomplish this is to re-encode utilizing ffmpeg and the stereo3d filter which was designed for this purpose.

Here's an example:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -vf stereo3d=sbsl:mr -metadata:s:v:0 stereo_mode="mono" output.mkv

This results in a 2D (right eye only) output.mkv file.

The stereo3d filter is controlled via InputType:OutputType as described in great detail in the stereo3d filter documentation

In the above example sbsl indicates that the InputType is side by side parallel (left eye left, right eye right) and the mr indicates that the OutputType should be mono output (right eye only)

The reason -metadata:s:v:0 stereo_mode="mono" is included on the command line is to remove the stereo tag because the metadata isn't piped through the filter system, and ffmpeg otherwise tries to duplicate the metadata of the original. Failure to include this can cause some players identifying the resulting video as 3D resulting in weirdness.

You can then view the resulting file with your favorite 2D video player.

Sources:

https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/21084/how-to-convert-a-3d-movie-to-2d-using-ffmpeg

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html