Free viewpoint television

Introduction

Free Viewpoint Television is a 3D information system that allows image acquisition, processing and displaying. This system has been designed by Masayuki Tanimoto, from Nagoya University (Japan). It’s based on “Ray-Based Image Engineering”, using the Ray-space method, and Ray-space Representation.

FTV tries to build a new epoch in television history because it allows viewers to see a real 3D world, just changing their point of view, just like they were in the acquired scene. Viewers can make their choice with what they want to see from a scene.

A stage is captured by several cameras connected to a server. Watchers, who are in front of the FTV display, will be able to see the acquired images, depending on where they are watching. The information taken out from the cameras built-in the FTV displays will manage to get what image is to be displayed on the television. If the user moves to right, he or she will be able to see whatever is on that side of the stage and vice-versa.

Acquisition of FTV Signal

Signal acquisition is made using cameras connected to a server, put in front of the scene to film, at the same height. There are two main position setups for the cameras: linear & half-round. Processing of FTV Signal

The quality of the generated views depends mainly of the interpolation made, because we can’t use infinite cameras to build a scene. If the user is set in a position where a camera is not able to reach the needed image, FTV interpolates the images from the nearest cameras.

Display of FTV Signal

FTV offers a high-grade detail and very high definition even recording very complex scenes, like for example tiny objects as fishes, bubbles and light reflections from an aquarium glass, but FTV needs a new user interface to display free viewpoint images. By now, this TV system is developed using 2D and automultiscopic displays with a head tracking system.

100-Camera System

This system has been designed to be able to acquire large scenes. It’s based on a server and 100 clients (called nodes) equipped with cameras PULNiX TM-1400CL. The server generates a sync signal and it’s distributed to all nodes. This system is not only able to capture high-resolution video at 30fps but it can record analogue signals up to 96 kHz.

Conclusion

FTV is a next generation where users can determinate their viewpoint, so we can see an unrestricted visual field of the 3D world.