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In-Depth Information
conventional 2D video capture with depth map generation have been used for the
capture of multiview auto-stereoscopic 3D content. However, the display of mul-
tiview autostereoscopic 3D content relies upon the brain to fuse two disparate
images to create the 3D sensation. A particularly contentious aspect for entertain-
ment applications is the human factors issue. For example, in stereoscopy the
viewer needs to focus at the screen plane while simultaneously converging their
eyes to locations in space producing unnatural viewing [5, 6]. This can cause eye-
strain and headaches in some people. Consequently content producers limit the
depth of scene to be viewed to minimise this problem. The transmission of stereo-
scopic content in Korea and Japan during the 2002 World Cup showed that fast
moving action caused nausea in some viewers. With recent advances in digital
technology, some human factors which result in eye fatigue have been eliminated.
However, some intrinsic eye fatigue factors will always exist in stereoscopic 3D
technology [4, 7]. Furthermore, due to the lack of perspective continuity in 2D
view systems, objects in the scene often lack solidity (cardboarding) and give rise
to an 'unreal' experience.
Creating a truly realistic 3D real-time viewing experience in an ergonomic and
cost effective manner is a fundamental engineering challenge. Holographic tech-
niques demonstrate true 3D and are being researched by different groups in an ef-
fort to produce full colour images with spatial content [7, 8, 9]. Holography is a
technology that overcomes the shortcomings of stereoscopic imaging and offers
the ultimate 3D viewing experience, but their adoptions for 3D TV and 3D cinema
are still in its infancy. Holographic recording requires coherent light which makes
holography, at least in the near future, unsuitable for live capture.
3D Holoscopic imaging (also referred to as Integral Imaging) is a technique
that is capable of creating and encoding a true volume spatial optical model of the
object scene in the form of a planar intensity distribution by using unique optical
components [10, 12, 18]. It is akin to holography in that 3D information recorded
on a 2-D medium can be replayed as a full 3D optical model, however, in contrast
to holography, coherent light sources are not required. This conveniently allows
more conventional live capture and display procedures to be adopted. Further-
more, 3D holoscopic imaging offers fatigue free viewing to more than one person
independently of the viewer's position. With recent progress in the theory and mi-
crolens manufacturing, holoscopic imaging is becoming a practical and prospec-
tive 3D display technology and is attracting much interest in the 3D area [7, 12,
20]. It is now accepted as a strong candidate for next generation 3D TV [7].
2 3D Holoscopic Content Generation
The first 3D holoscopic imaging method was “Integral Photography”. It was first
proposed by G. Lippmann [10] in 1908. To record an integral photograph
Lippmann used a regularly spaced array of small lenslets closely packed together in
contact with a photographic emulsion as shown in figure 1a. Each lenslet views the
scene at a slightly different angle to its neighbour and therefore a scene is captured
from many view points and parallax information is recorded. After processing, if
