Optimizing Stereo-to-Multiview Conversion for Autostereoscopic Displays

Figure 1: Our method produces depth-enhanced multiview content from stereo images while preserving the original artistic intent. (a) and (b) show the linearly mapped disparities as well as enhanced disparities computed using our method. (c) and (d) show the result of stereo-to-multiview conversion using (a) and (b), respectively. Our method avoids the cardboarding effect that can be seen in the linearly mapped version. We present a novel stereo-to-multiview video conversion method for glasses-free multiview displays. Different from previous stereo-to-multiview approaches, our mapping algorithm utilizes the limited depth range of autostereo-scopic displays optimally and strives to preserve the scene’s artistic composition and perceived depth even under strong depth compression. We first present an investigation of how perceived image quality relates to spatial fre-quency and disparity. The outcome of this study is utilized in a two-step mapping algorithm, where we (i) compress the scene depth using a non-linear global function to the depth range of an autostereoscopic display, and (ii) en-hance the depth gradients of salient objects to restore the perceived depth and salient scene structure. Finally, an adapted image domain warping algorithm is proposed to generate the multiview output, which enables overall disparity range extension