Interactive 3-DTV -: Concepts and key technologies

The objective of this paper is to provide an overview about recent trends in the area of three-dimensional television (3-DTV). This includes the application of new 3-D data representation formats, which are inherently interactive and more flexible than the traditional (two-view) stereoscopic image. In this context, we describe an experimental 3-DTV system that is based on the joint distribution of monoscopic color video and associated per-pixel depth information. From these data, one or more "virtual" views of a real-world scene can be synthesized in real-time at the receiver side (i.e., in a 3-DTV set-top box) by means of so-called depth-iniage-based rendering (DIBR) techniques. In addition, the paper provides details on the latest advances in glasses-free (autostereoscopic) 3-DTV display development, both for single and multiple users, as well as on multimodel user interfaces based on head, gaze, or gesture tracking.