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Now, watch 3D movies at home without using glasses

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Press Trust of India London
Last Updated : Jan 25 2013 | 4:04 AM IST

The technology that adapts conventional 3-D films to the new displays in real time will be unveiled in Berlin at this year's IFA trade show next month.

Researchers at Fraunhofer Institute, Heinrich-Hertz Institute, HHI in Berlin recently developed a technology that converts a Blu-ray's existing 3-D content in a manner that enables them to be shown on autostereoscopic displays.

"Lounging on a sofa while watching a 3D movie is an exquisite pleasure for many film fans. Be that as it may, those nettlesome 3D glasses might diminish the fun somewhat," researchers said in a statement.

Though prototypes of these TV screens already exist, consumers will not have to wait much longer for the market introduction of these autostereoscopic displays.

Nevertheless, the content might be a bit problematic: The 3-D movies currently available on Blu-ray are based on two different perspectives- two images, one for each eye.

However, autostereoscopic displays need five to ten views of the same scene. In the future, the number will probably be even more.

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This is because these displays have to present a three-dimensional image in such a manner that it can be seen from different angles, there is more than one place to sit on a sofa, and you should be able to get the same three dimensional impressions from any position.

"We take the existing two images and generate a depth map -- that is to say, a map that assigns a specific distance from the camera to each object," said Christian Riechert, research fellow at HHI.

"From there we compute any of several intermediate views by applying depth image-based rendering techniques. And here's the really neat thing: The process operates on a fully automated basis, and in real time," he said.

Previous systems were only capable of generating such depth maps at a dramatically slower pace; sometimes they even required manual adaption.

The researchers have already finished the software that converts these data.

  

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First Published: Aug 17 2012 | 3:06 PM IST

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