Microsoft has open-sourced the code for 3D Movie Maker, a discontinued video editing suite that was used to create stereoscopic and 360-degree films. The software was discontinued in 2011, but the licensing model it used allowed Microsoft to keep the code private.
The news of the release comes from a blog post by Stephen Walter, director of program management at Microsoft, who says that Microsoft is releasing the source code under the MIT License “to allow developers and enthusiasts to continue working with and improving this technology.” It is now possible to download the original source code for the project from GitHub under the MIT license as open source.
It’s a great move for the development community, which could potentially breathe new life into a project that Microsoft has been left behind.
3D Movie Maker was released in 2006 and was designed for users who wanted to make their own 3D films without needing any specialized knowledge of video editing or programming.
The software used a patented approach called “parallax barrier” to convert regular 2D footage into anaglyphic 3D; anaglyphic 3D can be viewed with polarized glasses that have different colors on each lens (red and blue).
It also offered support for spherical lenses like fisheye lenses, which capture wide fields of view but make it difficult to see anything up close.
