Stereoscopic Depth Correction for Viewer Discomfort
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Solution Overview
Problem
Stereoscopic 3D media often causes viewer discomfort due to sudden or excessive changes in perceived depth, which can lead to convergence issues and discomfort as viewers attempt to perceive displayed depths.
Innovation Solution
A media composition system that detects, visualizes, and corrects perceived depth changes by analyzing disparity values between stereo image pairs, generating depth histograms, and allowing users to adjust perceived depth values using graphical tools, ensuring comfortable viewing experiences by limiting depth changes within acceptable ranges.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If disparity values are computed using basic correlation algorithms on stereo image pairs, then depth information can be extracted, but sudden or excessive changes in perceived depth occur causing viewer discomfort
Solution Approach 1:
The system computes perceived depth values from disparity maps and provides feedback by notifying editors when depth changes exceed acceptable thresholds. This feedback mechanism allows editors to identify and correct problematic depth transitions that would cause viewer discomfort, thus resolving the contradiction between accurate depth measurement and viewer comfort.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary computation of perceived depth values across the entire image sequence before final rendering. By pre-calculating depth metrics and identifying problematic regions in advance, editors can make corrective adjustments before the content is delivered to viewers, preventing discomfort rather than addressing it after the fact.
2Reliability
If multiple cameras are used to capture stereoscopic footage, then depth calculation robustness improves, but the complexity of computing correspondence between multiple camera views increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts correspondence information from multiple camera views by computing disparity maps between adjacent camera pairs. Rather than attempting to directly match all cameras simultaneously, it extracts pairwise disparities and combines them, simplifying the overall correspondence computation while maintaining robustness through multiple measurements.
Solution Approach 2:
The system segments the multi-camera correspondence problem into multiple pairwise disparity computations. By dividing the complex N-camera correspondence task into simpler 2-camera disparity calculations, the system reduces computational complexity while maintaining reliability through redundant measurements from multiple camera pairs.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If editors manually adjust perceived depth values to correct depth changes, then viewer comfort improves, but the time and effort required for post-processing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system replaces manual trial-and-adjustment mechanics with automated computation of perceived depth values. By using algorithmic depth metric calculation instead of manual estimation, editors can quickly identify problematic regions without time-consuming manual analysis, reducing post-processing time while maintaining viewer comfort.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs self-analysis by automatically computing depth metrics and identifying regions where depth changes exceed thresholds. This self-service capability eliminates the need for editors to manually analyze each frame, automatically flagging only the regions that require attention and significantly reducing overall post-processing time.
Data Source
AI summary
A set of tools in a media composition system for stereoscopic video provides visualizations of the perceived depth field in video clips, including depth maps, depth histograms, time-based depth histogram ribbons and curves displayed in association with a media timeline, and multi-panel displays including views of clips temporally adjacent to a clip being edited. Temporal changes in perceived depth that may cause viewer discomfort are automatically detected, and when they exceed a predetermined threshold, the editor is alerted. Depth grading tools facilitate matching depths in an outgoing clip to those in an incoming clip. Depth grading can be performed automatically upon detection of excessively large or rapid perceived depth changes.