Dynamic Horizontal Image Translation in Stereo 3D

Dynamic horizontal image translation (DHIT) denotes the act of dynamically shifting the stereo 3D (S3D) views of a scene in opposite directions so that the portrayed scene is moved along the depth axis. This technique is predominantly used in the context of active depth cuts, where the shifting occurs just before and after a shot cut in order to mitigate depth discontinuities that would otherwise induce visual fatigue.

In this work, the perceptual properties of the DHIT are investigated experimentally. An important finding was that there are strong individual differences in the sensitivity towards DHIT. Furthermore, two enhancements of this approach are proposed and analyzed.

When a DHIT is performed, the presented scene depth is distorted, i.e., compressed or stretched. A distortion-free dynamic horizontal image translation (DHIT+) is proposed that mitigates these distortions by adjusting the distance between the S3D cameras through depth-image-based rendering techniques. This approach proved to be significantly less annoying. The views could be shifted about 50% faster without perceptual side effects.

Another proposed approach is called gaze adaptive convergence in stereo 3D applications (GACS3D). An eye tracker is used to estimate the visual focus whose disparity is then slowly reduced using the DHIT. In order to be able to do so, a high accuracy 3D visual focus estimation has been developed. GACS3D is supposed to lessen visual fatigue since the infamous accommodation vergence discrepancy is reduced.