A compact representation for stereoscopic sequences with NTSC spectral compatibility

Abstract

This paper describes a new compression method for interlaced stereoscopic image sequences, which compacts the stereo information into the spectral space of a single NTSC channel. The left and right fields of the stereoscopic pairs are each decomposed into a lowpass and a highpass components. High-frequency components are limited to an area of fixation, thus allowing a reduction of their spectral extent. A composite video signal is then formed by positioning the different components in the available spectral space through filtering and modulation. Compatibility of the produced signal with the NTSC standard is ensured by using the same spectral region for the chrominance information and the same colour subcarrier. Good quality results are obtained with relatively simple 2D separable spatial filters at a reasonable computational cost.