New Technology Presents Any 3D Movie Without Glasses
[Philip Lelyveld comment: Fraunhofer advances autostereo processing from Blu-ray files.]
... Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications, Heinrich-Hertz Institute, HHI in Berlin recently developed a technology that converts a Blu-ray’s existing 3D content in a manner that enables them to be shown on autostereoscopic displays. “We take the existing two images and generate a depth map – that is to say, a map that assigns a specific distance from the camera to each object,” says Christian Riechert, research fellow at HHI. “From there we compute any of several intermediate views by applying depth image-based rendering techniques. And here’s the really neat thing: the process operates on a fully automated basis, and in real time.” Previous systems were only capable of generating such depth maps at a dramatically slower pace; sometimes they even required manual adaption. Real-time conversion, by contrast, is like simultaneous interpretation: the viewer inserts a 3D Blu-ray disc, gets comfortable in front of the TV screen and enjoys the movie – without the glasses. Meanwhile, a hardware component estimates the depth map in the background and generates the requisite views. The viewer is aware of nothing: he or she can fast forward or rewind the movie, start it, stop it – and all with the same outstanding quality. The flickering that could appear on the edges of objects – something that happens due to imprecise estimations – is imperceptible here. ...
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