<title>Mapping perceived depth to regions of interest in stereoscopic images</title>

Abstract

The usable perceived depth range of a stereoscopic 3D display is limited by human factors considerations to a defined range around the screen plane. There is therefore a need in stereoscopic image creation to map depth from the scene to a target display without exceeding these limits. Recent image capture methods provide precise control over this depth mapping but map a single range of scene depth as a whole and are unable to give preferential stereoscopic representation to a particular region of interest in the scene. A new approach to stereoscopic image creation is described that allows a defined region of interest in scene depth to have an improved perceived depth representation compared to other regions of the scene. For example in a game this may be the region of depth around a game character, or in a scientific visualization the region around a particular feature of interest. To realize this approach we present a novel algorithm for stereoscopic image capture and describe an implementation for the widely used ray-tracing package POV-Ray. Results demonstrate how this approach provides content creators with improved control over perceived depth representation in stereoscopic images.