Glasses-free Autostereoscopic Viewing on Laptop through Spatial Tracking

This paper introduces an autostereoscopic viewing method that eliminates the need for specialized 3D glasses. The approach relies on vision-based motion parallax effects achieved by rendering a 3D scene on a 2D display according to the viewer’s head position. Two systems were developed: one employing a single-camera setup, and the other utilizing a dual-camera configuration. By utilizing webcams integrated into a laptop, real-time analysis of the viewer’s head position is performed. A combination of computer vision and range imaging techniques extracts the viewer’s viewing position in the 3D space. This information is then used to manipulate the primary camera object within the Unity game engine, facilitating the rendering of an autostereoscopic view of a 3D scene. The Unity game engine adjusts the scene based on the viewer’s perspective, creating an illusion of a 3D scene on a 2D display as the viewer’s viewpoint changes. The accuracy, range, and output stability of the depth estimation techniques employed in both systems were assessed through systematic evaluation and an application usecase. The systematic evaluation revealed high levels of accuracy in estimating distances from the viewer to the laptop display for both systems, achieved within an effective viewing range of approximately 40 to 160 centimeters. A comprehensive discussion compares the capabilities and performance metrics of the two systems, while the application use-case discussion emphasizes their effectiveness in delivering optimal autostereoscopic viewing on a PC laptop screen.