Recording video from the CAVE

This document describes various ways of recording real-time video from a CAVE application. There are many different ways to do this, depending on your hardware and exactly what you want to record; I will attempt to go over all the important possibilities.

There are two basic parts to doing CAVE video recording: 1. getting video out of the computer, and 2.configuring your CAVE application. They are inter-related in that the method you choose to get video out will determine some of the CAVE configuration, and contrariwise, a specific configuration that you wish to use may determine how you must set up the hardware.

Some general 'styles' of recording which can be done are:


SGI Video Output

To record a CAVE app, you will need to take a section of the framebuffer and get it into some sort of NTSC formatted video out of the SGI. There are several possible routes. The main ones are: built-in encoders on Infinite Reality and Reality Engine graphics, Sirius, DIVO, and the normal monitor video output channels.

Hardware

RE & IR video encoders

All Reality Engine and Infinite Reality graphics boards have built-in NTSC encoders which output composite and S-Video signals. These can be hooked directly to an ordinary VHS deck or other video recorder. There are 3 connectors - RCA and BNC connectors for composite, and one S-Video connector; when the encoder is active, these all output the same image.

On Reality Engines, the command /usr/sbin/vout controls the area of the screen which is output by the encoder. On IRs, you must use ircombine to control the encoder; the encoder is treated as a separate channel, but it uses some of the same circuitry as channel 1, and so the two cannot be used simultaneously.

The video from the encoder will not be as high quality as a component signal produced by one of the other methods below, but this is by far the easiest method of getting video out. If you don't need broadcast-quality material, the encoder is a good choice.

The composite and S-video connectors on the back of an Onyx/IR are shown here:

Sirius

The Sirius is a special video input/output board for the Onyx/RE and IR (but not Onyx2). It consists of a board in the Onyx and a large breakout box:

The breakout box has numerous BNC connectors on it, including ones for composite and component video output. The component output can be RGB or Y/R-Y/B-Y (Betacam); this is controlled by /usr/sbin/vcp. The program /usr/sbin/videoout controls the live video output feature of the Sirius. It can send either a video-sized (roughly 640x480) portion of the display, or an entire 1280x1024 display, scan-converted to NTSC resolution.

When using Sirius on an IR, you should also make sure to define a Sirius channel in the current video combination (created with ircombine), or the video daemon will have problems starting.

DIVO

The DIVO is a digital video input/output board for the Onyx2, similar to the Sirius. However, it only provides digital video, which means you must either have a digital video recorder, or a digital-to-analog converter (such as the Madras box in the EVL video suite) to record anything from it.

My experience with the DIVO so far is practically nil, so I won't attempt to document it further.

Monitor outputs

All SGI workstations have 13W3 video outputs which console monitors and CAVE projectors are normally connected to. These may also be used for recording. The video signal on these outputs is controlled by /usr/gfx/setmon (and ircombine on the IR). On non-IR (and non-multichannel) systems, the command
	/usr/gfx/setmon -n NTSC
will switch the display to an NTSC video format. Note that this will still be an RGB signal, however, and so must generally be converted by some other video hardware before it is fed to a recording deck.

On an IR, you will need to create a combination with ircombine that loads the appropriate channel with the NTSC video format (vfo).

ircombine

The program /usr/gfx/ircombine is used to create new combinations of video formats for Infinite Reality systems. The combinations can then be loaded with /usr/gfx/setmon (or directly from ircombine). ircombine requires root access to run; setmon does not require root, except when changing the default combination stored in EEPROM.

When you run ircombine, you will see this interface:

A video combination consists of one or more channels. Channels correspond to the physical monitor outputs on the IR, plus the NTSC encoder and the Sirius. The buttons along the top of the ircombine interface (Ch0, Ch1, ...) are used to select and define the channels.

To choose the format for a channel, click that channel's button. A file browser will pop up, showing the vfo's (video formats) that are available. Their names normally take the form widthxheight_frequency; some format names have suffixes, such as "s" for stereo. For example, 1280x1024_60 is a 1280 x 1024 channel at 60Hz; 1024x768_96s is a 1024 x 768 channel at 96Hz, stereo; 646x485_30i is an NTSC style format - 646 x 485 at 30Hz, interlaced. Once you have selected the format, a blue rectangle will appear in the central window, showing the portion of the framebuffer covered by the channel. You can move this area around using the mouse, for instance if you want to tile multiple channels.

If you are going to use the built-in encoder, click the 'Encoder' button. The channel rectangle will immediately appear, as there is no choice of what video format to use. Position the channel where you want it, relative to the other channel(s) of the display. Remember that you cannot use the encoder and channel 1 simultaneously, so channel 1 must remain undefined in this case.

If you are going to use the Sirius option, click on the 'Sirius' button (it will be greyed-out if ircombine does not detect any Sirius board on the pipe that you are configuring). The channel rectangle will appear immediately, as with the encoder. videoout will allow you to control what part of the screen is output by the Sirius, so the channel's location in ircombine is not important.

If you are going to use a monitor output channel, assign an NTSC format (e.g. 646x485_30i) to the channel that is connected to your video recorder.

By default, ircombine uses a 1280x1024 managed area for the graphics pipe. If you want to have multiple channels which don't overlap, you may need a larger area. In this case, use the "Edit globals..." button to modify the managed area. You will get the following popup:

Change the two numbers on the top line to the size you want. (If you want the pipe to be genlocked to an external video source, use the "Sync Source" and "Sync Format" options in this popup to set that.)

Some other things to be aware of:


CAVE Configuration

There are many CAVE configuration options which are relevant to making video recordings. The most important are those that define the graphics display configuration; however, in some cases you may wish to modify the projection or tracking options as well.

The display

Unless you are simply recording a full-screen dump of single CAVE wall or the IDesk using the Sirius option, you will want to define a separate "wall" for your video output. This wall will be in addition to the regular walls that are displaying in the CAVE or on the IDesk, or possibly in place of one CAVE wall.

The wall that will be used for the video output must be configured so that its window matches the section of frame buffer that is being recorded, which depends on which output method you're using (above). An NTSC video image is roughly 640x480 pixels; the exact size depends on the hardware - for instance, the Sirius videoout window is 648x486. Once you know the size and location of the area that will be recorded, use this information in your CAVE configuration file for the output wall's window geometry. For example:

	WallDisplay simulator :0.0 648x486+0+0
puts an NTSC sized simulator display in the lower left corner of the screen. Remember that in the CAVE config, Y offsets are measured from the bottom of the screen to the bottom of the window; in X windows, Y offsets are from the top of the screen to the top of the window (the geometry argument for videoout uses the X windows orientation). So, a command for recording the above window would be:
	/usr/sbin/videoout -f -nocontrol -geometry 648x486+0+538

The projection

In the configuration file, a CAVE wall can be defined as an "HMD" or "wall" projection type, using the ProjectionData option. The CAVE and IDesk walls are of the "wall" type, but when head-tracking is active, recording this sort of projection on video will tend to look odd - objects shear and the field of view changes as the user moves around. So for the video channel we typically use an "HMD" projection. Of course, having a different type of projection than what the user sees in the CAVE can sometimes make it difficult to precisely frame a view of a scene; in cases where you want to record exactly the view that appears on a CAVE wall, a "wall" projection should be used (often with head tracking disabled - see below).

The simplest HMD-style display to use is the simulator wall.

Tracking

In some cases, such as when you a "wall" rather than HMD projection, you will want to disable head tracking, in order to keep the camera view steady. To disable tracking entirely, you can simply use the configuration option:
	TrackerType none
However, this will also disable wand tracking, which may make interaction difficult. To only disable head tracking, use
	ActiveSensors 1
which tells the CAVElib to only update sensor number 1 (the wand); if you have more than one wand sensor, remember to include them as well on the ActiveSensors line.


Last modified 8 June 1999.
Dave Pape, pape@evl.uic.edu