Binocle and INRIA Introduce their HD3D Stereoscopic Corrector

The French company Binocle and INRIA introduce the first real-time high-definition corrector. This corrector will allow the 3D TV viewers to experience corrected 3D video, stripped of vertical disparities, when watching stereoscopic 3D live broadcasts. These disparities caused visual discomfort when viewing stereoscopic images by causing eyestrain due to the geometric deformations intrinsic to 3D shooting. One of the challenges in mastering 3D cinema and television was related to the difficulty in transmitting deformation-free images, despite the extreme care needed for 3D shooting.

The technical conditions that would lead to the success of 3D cinema and television, which were defined in the 90’s by Binocle, are finally met. Indeed, the Binocle company was created in 1998 thanks to of the maturity of two technologies allowing the current 3D revolution. These conditions are, on the one hand, the computerized management of camera and optics motion (motion control), and on the other hand, digital video capture which makes it possible to correct the stereoscopic disparities pixel by pixel. Stereoscopic motion control already led to a world premiere at IBC 1999, when Binocle presented the first computer-controlled digital video camera for 3D television developed with Grass Valley and Thalès Angenieux.

The Binocle team and Frederic Devernay from INRIA have been collaborating for six years in order to achieve these developments. This real-time corrector follows the realization of a 3D corrector for cinematographic post-production.

Binocle and INRIA developed this new tool within the 3DLive research project for live 3D television. 3DLive, started in 2009, gathers eight French companies and laboratories among which Orange, Thales Angénieux and Technicolor, from the three business clusters Images et Réseaux in Britanny, Cap Digital in Paris region, and Imaginove in Rhône-Alpes.

Source: Binocle