Abstract
Stereo videography is a powerful technique for quantifying the kinematics and behavior of animals, but it can be challenging to use in an outdoor field setting. We here present a workflow and associated software for performing calibration of cameras placed in a field setting and estimating the accuracy of the resulting stereoscopic reconstructions. We demonstrate the workflow through example stereoscopic reconstructions of bat and bird flight. We provide software tools for planning experiments and processing the resulting calibrations that other researchers may use to calibrate their own cameras. Our field protocol can be deployed in a single afternoon, requiring only short video clips of light, portable calibration objects.
FOOTNOTES
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Author contributions
D.T.: developing methodology and software, collecting data, writing manuscript. N.F.: collecting data, writing manuscript. B.J.: collecting data. E.B.: developing software. D.E.: developing software, writing manuscript. Z.W.: developing software. M.B.: study concept, developing methodology, writing manuscript. T.H.: study concept, developing methodology and software, writing manuscript.
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Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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Funding
This work was partially funded by the Office of Naval Research [N000141010952 to M.B. and T.H.], the National Science Foundation [0910908 and 0855065 to M.B. and 1253276 to T.H.] and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research [FA9550-07-1-0540 to M.B.].
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Supplementary material
Supplementary material available online at http://jeb.biologists.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1242/jeb.100529/-/DC1
- © 2014. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
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