Simplified video transmission of stereo images for 3D image reconstruction in TV

Earlier bi-circular polarization technique for implementing a 3D TV with two picture tubes showed to yield reduced crosstalk compared to the popular linear polarization technique. This paper reports to modify the implementation of bi-circular polarized technique with just one picture tube incorporating electro-optically driven polarization. The crosstalk resulted in this implementation is shown to be much reduced. Secondly, a 3D TV system transmitting stereo pair of images and recovering sectional images in the receiver is proposed. The display of sectional images, for naked eye viewing, is taken to volumetric display in a display tank and alternatively to an electro-optically driven vari-focal lens system. The high speed RISC processor in the receiver performs stereo matching of adaptive windows bearing a cluster of edges on the pair of images and produces sectional images. As the transmission of stereo images is simpler than other methods this technique offers another feasible way towards implementing 3D TV.

I. Introduction

Several techniques have been proposed in the past for realization of 3D TV and extensive researches are continuing to find the viable future stereo television [1]. As crosstalk is an annoying distortion in 3D displays [2] and deteriorating the depth visualization, attempts are to be made to minimize the crosstalk as much as possible. One of the popular technique approved in the industry for experimental broadcast of 3D TV is polarization based routing of optical images. The earlier linear polarization technique admits inherently too much cross talk and seriously affects the depth visualization. The bi-circular polarization [3] employed for routing the stereo pair of images to respective eyes of the viewer has reduced crosstalk. This method has used two adjacent picture tubes for displaying the stereo pair of images. As a further contribution to this area of research this paper proposes to use only one picture tube displaying alternatively the stereo pair of images. Bi-circular polarized optical images are produced from the displayed images by electro-optic plane polarizer attached to the picture tube screen. By a visualization model the cross talk is proved to be reduced drastically compared to earlier scheme employing two picture tubes.