Efficient and high speed depth-based 2D to 3D video conversion

Abstract

Stereoscopic video is the new era in video viewing and has wide applications such as medicine, satellite imaging and 3D Television. Such stereo content can be generated directly using S3D cameras. However, this approach requires expensive setup and hence converting monoscopic content to S3D becomes a viable approach. This paper proposes a depth-based algorithm for monoscopic to stereoscopic video conversion by using the y axis co-ordinates of the bottom-most pixels of foreground objects. This code can be used for arbitrary videos without prior database training. It does not face the limitations of single monocular depth cues nor does it combine depth cues, thus consuming less processing time without affecting the efficiency of the 3D video output. The algorithm, though not comparable to real-time, is faster than the other available 2D to 3D video conversion techniques in the average ratio of 1:8 to 1:20, essentially qualifying as high-speed. It is an automatic conversion scheme, hence directly gives the 3D video output without human intervention and with the above mentioned features becomes an ideal choice for efficient monoscopic to stereoscopic video conversion.