3D4You

Closed project

BBC R&D concluded its work on the 3D4You project in January 2011. The information below is presented for archival usage.

The successful re-launch of stereoscopic 3D (S3D) in cinemas has stimulated a growing desire for S3D content in the broadcast industry, focusing in particular on coverage of live sports events such as football and rugby.

Unfortunately, the cost of adding S3D to coverage of these events is prohibitive because of the need for stereo rigged pairs of cameras and additional operating and broadcast infrastructure.

At present S3D is captured using special stereo rigs that are built up using miniature cameras, or through the use of a special mirror rig. Unfortunately, the boxed super-zoom-lenses and high speed cameras that are commonly used in sports coverage are not suitable for use in such a rig.

The 3D4YOU project will develop the key elements of future 3D television systems…

3D4YOU

Our work in the 3D4YOU project offers an alternative method of production.

It seeks to derive 3D stereoscopic content from normal broadcast cameras (plus optional locked-off cameras), making use of multi-camera 3D reconstruction techniques that have previously been used for post-match analysis of sports scenes in the iview project.

These techniques perform an automatic camera calibration and segmentation of the foreground action from which a 3D model can be computed.

This data is then converted into a 3DTV format which is independent of the 3D display – it stores depth information alongside the image, allowing the generation of either stereoscopic or multi-view for different kinds of 3D displays.

Alternatively, the data can be stored as a conventional S3D image pair for the left and right eye with a fixed inter-ocular distance of approximately 6.5 cm – the average eye distance of the population.

The 3D4YOU project is part-funded by the European Union under the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) Work Programme 2007-2008.

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