Television – Stereoscopic
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-13
2002-10-15
Kelley, Chris (Department: 2713)
Television
Stereoscopic
Reexamination Certificate
active
06466255
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a stereoscopic video display method and apparatus, a stereoscopic video system, and a stereoscopic video forming method, a natural stereoscopic sense can be obtained by limiting a parallax amount between a target and another object.
2. Description of the Related Art
When the person sees a target, a focal point is set only to a position near the target existing at a center of a field of view and an object existing at a position of out-of-focus is recognized as a blurred object. Therefore, the person hardly recognizes a large parallax.
For example, a method and an apparatus which can obtain effectively a stereoscopic sense of not only a moving object but also a still object from a 2-dimensional video signal (composite color video signal) are disclosed in JP-A-10-276455.
FIG. 1
shows a block diagram of such an apparatus and relates to an example of a projection type display using two projectors for displaying right and left video images, respectively. The position in the horizontal direction on a screen is controlled in accordance with boundary information of an inputted video signal, thereby generating a parallax between the right and left video images.
A 2-dimensional video signal supplied to an input terminal
51
is supplied to a Y/C separating circuit
52
, by which a luminance signal Y and a chrominance signal C are separated. The chrominance signal C is supplied to a color demodulating circuit
53
. The color demodulating circuit
53
performs a color demodulation to the supplied chrominance signal C, thereby generating two color difference signals (R-Y and B-Y). The luminance signal Y is supplied to a variable delay circuit
54
L. The color difference signals R-Y and B-Y are supplied to delay circuits
55
L and
56
L each having a fixed delay amount. A symbol “L” indicates a left video signal path. A right video signal path is expressed by a symbol “R”. Since the right video signal path is similar to the left video signal path, its description is omitted.
Output signals of the variable delay circuit
54
L and delay circuits
55
L and
56
L are supplied to a matrix circuit
57
L. Three primary color signals R, G, and B are formed by the matrix circuit
57
L and supplied to a CRT driving circuit
59
L through a preamplifier
25
58
L.
A CRT
60
L for projection is driven by the CRT driving circuit
59
L and a left video image is displayed on a screen
62
. Similarly, a CRT
60
R for projection is driven by a CRT driving circuit
59
R and a right video image is displayed on the screen
62
. In this instance, the right and left video images are overlapped and displayed so as not to be deviated to the same position on the screen
62
. The left video image which is projected by the CRT
60
L is an image which passed through a horizontal polarizing filter
61
L. On the other hand, the right video image which is projected by the CRT
60
R is an image which passed through a vertical polarizing filter
61
R.
By using glasses
63
having a horizonal polarizing filter
64
L for the left eye and a vertical polarizing filter
64
R for the right eye, the user can separately see the video images displayed on the screen
62
by the CRTs
60
L and
60
R.
The left and right video images having parallax information are formed being controlled so as to deviate the horizontal positions of the left and right video images in the opposite directions in accordance with boundary information in the inputted video signal by the variable delay circuits
54
L and
54
R. In case of an object having a large amount of boundary information, the object image is determined to be a foreground. On the other hand, in case of an object having a small amount of boundary information, the object image is determined to be a background. The amount of boundary information is detected on the basis of the luminance signal Y from the Y/C separating circuit
52
. That is, a detection signal Sd is formed by allowing the luminance signal Y to pass through a high pass filter
65
and a rectifying circuit
66
.
The high pass filter
65
detects a high frequency component in the luminance signal Y. The high frequency component includes pulses of a positive polarity and a negative polarity. The rectifying circuit
66
rectifies an output signal of the high pass filter
65
and generates the detection signal Sd having a positive or negative polarity.
The detection signal Sd is supplied to the variable delay circuit
54
L as a signal to control the delay amount and also supplied to an inverter
67
. A detection signal Sd′ inverted by the inverter
67
is supplied to the variable delay circuit
54
R as a signal to control the delay amount.
By supplying the detection signals Sd and Sd′ to the variable delay circuits
54
L and
54
R, the positions in the horizontal direction of the left and right video images are controlled so as to mutually move in the opposite directions, thereby allowing an image of the object having the boundary information to be formed as a fusion image onto one of the front and rear surfaces of the screen
62
.
OBJECTS AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, an object of the invention to provide stereoscopic video display method and apparatus which can obtain a natural stereoscopic sense of limiting a parallax as compared with the existing stereoscopic video display method.
It is an object of the invention to obtain a stereoscopic sense of a parallax between the right and left eyes and provide a stereoscopic video system which gives a relative parallax limited to a value within a predetermined amount between a foreground and a background which are discriminated from a video signal.
A clue of a foreground/background relation is extracted from a video signal inputted to a foreground/background discriminating circuit based on a focus, color difference signals, and a luminance signal. An amplitude is limited for the extracted clue, and a control signal is supplied to variable delay circuits for delaying a right video image and a left video image. In the variable delay circuits, a delay according to a level of the control signal is performed synchronously with the control signal and the right and left video images are outputted.
It is an object of the invention to provide a stereoscopic video system comprising means for giving a relative parallax to a foreground and a background which are discriminated from right and left video signals photographed by two cameras and means for limiting the relative parallax to a value within a predetermined amount and to provide a stereoscopic video forming method for such a system.
Since a parallax between a target and another object is expressed only by the relative parallax instead of an absolute parallax, a natural stereoscopic image can be realized. Since field memories are not used when converting 2-dimensional video images to a 3-dimensional video image, the circuit scale can be small enough.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5924870 (1999-07-01), Brosh et al.
patent: 5929859 (1999-07-01), Meijers
patent: 6005607 (1999-12-01), Uomori et al.
patent: 6163337 (2000-12-01), Azuma et al.
patent: 6201566 (2001-03-01), Harada et al.
patent: 6259426 (2001-07-01), Harada et al.
patent: 6329987 (2001-12-01), Gottfried et al.
Harada Shigeru
Kagita Junji
Kelley Chris
Maioli Jay H.
Sony Corporation
Vo Tung T.
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