Patent Application
20130300823
The present disclosure is generally related to stereoscopic systems.
Stereoscopic technology (e.g., 3D) and devices have gained increasing popularity among users. For instance, many multimedia entertainment systems implement stereoscopic user interfaces to immerse the user in a more realistic user experience. However, certain stereoscopic views may cause user discomfort (e.g., eye fatigue, confusion, etc.) and/or dissatisfaction, such as where there are multiple media presented on a display during a given instance in time (e.g., picture-in-picture, or PIP, or side-by-side formats (e.g., horizontally adjacent or vertically adjacent)).
In one embodiment, a stereo effect enhancement method, comprising: receiving a first multimedia stream and a second multimedia stream, the second multimedia stream comprising a second frame at a second depth and the first multimedia stream comprising a first frame at a first depth that is to be presented within the second frame; adjusting a difference between the first and second depths by reducing parallax between the first and second frames; and adding a border around the first frame, wherein the adjusting and adding provide a more visually satisfying presentation of stereoscopic content corresponding to the first and second frames, the receiving, adjusting, and adding performed by a processor.
In another embodiment, a stereo effect enhancement method, comprising: presenting plural multimedia streams to plural portions of a display screen, wherein a first of the multimedia streams is in a first portion consisting of a picture-in-picture format, at least one of the plural multimedia streams comprising stereoscopic content; analyzing a depth at an edge of the first portion relative to a second portion of the plural portions; responsive to the analysis: adjusting by a processor a depth of the first portion, the second portion, or a combination of both, wherein the adjusting comprises reducing parallax between the stereoscopic content of the first and second portions; and adding by the processor a border around the first portion.
In another embodiment, a stereo effect enhancement system, comprising: a memory comprising logic; and a processor configured by the logic to: present plural multimedia streams to plural portions of a display screen, wherein a first of the multimedia streams is in a first portion consisting of a picture-in-picture format, the plural multimedia streams comprising stereoscopic content; analyze a depth at an edge of the first portion relative to a second portion of the plural portions; adjust a depth of the first portion, the second portion, or a combination of both by reducing parallax between the stereoscopic content of the first and second portions; and add a border around the first portion.
In another embodiment, a stereo effect enhancement method, comprising: receiving a first multimedia stream and a second multimedia stream, the second multimedia stream comprising a second frame at a second depth and the first multimedia stream comprising a first frame at a first depth that is to be presented adjacent to the second frame; adjusting a difference between the first and second depths by reducing parallax between the first and second frames; and adding a border around the first frame, wherein the adjusting and adding provide a more visually satisfying presentation of stereoscopic content corresponding to the first and second frames, the receiving, adjusting, and adding performed by a processor.
Other systems, methods, features, and advantages of the present disclosure will be or become apparent to one with skill in the art upon examination of the following drawings and detailed description. It is intended that all such additional systems, methods, features, and advantages be included within this description, be within the scope of the present disclosure, and be protected by the accompanying claims.
Many aspects of the disclosure can be better understood with reference to the following drawings. The components in the drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon clearly illustrating the principles of the present disclosure. Moreover, in the drawings, like reference numerals designate corresponding parts throughout the several views.
Disclosed herein are certain embodiments of an invention that comprises a stereo effect enhancement system and method that enhances and separates a stereo effect of multimedia by adjusting the depth along an edge of an embedded or adjacent portion of a display screen that presents picture-in-picture or adjacent frames. For instance, in one picture-in-picture format embodiment, the stereo effect enhancement system provides a main, stereoscopic video frame sequence (e.g., video stream) for presentation on a viewable portion of a display screen, and also provides another video stream (also with stereoscopic content) for presentation in a smaller viewable portion of the display screen. The stereo effect enhancement system analyzes an edge of the smaller portion and adjusts the depth within the smaller portion, outside the smaller portion, or a combination of both. By adjusting the depth (e.g., to reduce parallax between the frames of the picture-in-picture presentation and the main presentation), the stereoscopic content in both the smaller and large frames appears more harmonious, resulting in a more satisfying video presentation to a user. In some embodiments, a similar manner of processing is implemented for side-by-side format embodiments (e.g., side-by-side corresponding to horizontally or vertically adjacent frames).
In contrast, showing multimedia streams in two portions within a picture (e.g., embedding one of the pictures within another) often appears inharmonious due to the difference in depths, causing a less-than-desirable viewer experience. For instance, the difference in depths may cause eye fatigue, dizziness, confusion, among other affects. By adjusting the depths between frames (e.g., pictures and frames herein used interchangeably, with the understanding that similar processing on fields such as in interlaced video applies similarly to progressive frames), the viewer's discomfort is eliminated or significantly mitigated, and the stereo effect is improved.
Having broadly summarized certain features of stereo effect enhancement systems and methods of the present disclosure, reference will now be made in detail to the description of the disclosure as illustrated in the drawings. While the disclosure is described in connection with these drawings, there is no intent to limit the disclosure to an embodiment or embodiments disclosed herein. For instance, though described in the context of video streams, it should be appreciated that additional and/or other forms of media, such as stereoscopic graphics, are contemplated to be within the scope of the disclosure. In other words, though certain examples disclosed herein use video streams to illustrate the various features of one or more disclosed embodiments, it should be appreciated that in general, multimedia streams are contemplated to be within the scope of the disclosure, the multimedia streams including one or a combination of video streams and graphics streams. Although the description identifies or describes specifics of one or more embodiments, such specifics are not necessarily part of every embodiment, nor are all various stated advantages associated with a single embodiment. On the contrary, the intent is to cover all alternatives, modifications and equivalents included within the spirit and scope of the disclosure as defined by the appended claims. Further, it should be appreciated in the context of the present disclosure that the claims are not necessarily limited to the particular embodiments set out in the description.
Attention is directed to
For purposes of illustration, the difference in size of the depicted objects (e.g., persons 108 and 110) of each frame 102 and 104 is used to illustrate a difference in scene depth. For instance, the face of the person 110 presented in the embedded frame 104 is depicted as larger in size than the face of the person 108 presented in the main frame 102, the larger size reflecting that the person 110 is perceived as being located closer to a viewer than the person 108 in the main frame 102. In some implementations, the person 110 in the embedded frame 104 may be perceived as farther from the viewer than the person 108. Practically speaking, the actual size of the objects in the embedded frame 104 does not change (absent employment of a zooming feature or the like), but rather, the perception of depth that the viewer experiences between the embedded frame 104 and the main frame 102. Such differences in depth may cause viewer discomfort and/or a perceived unsatisfactory stereoscopic presentation. To address any inharmonious presentation of the multiple video streams, an embodiment of a stereo effect enhancement system employs one or more methods to adjust the depth or the perception of depth.
Referring to
In some embodiments, the stereo effect enhancement system may employ measures additional to the depth adjustment described above to make the presentation of the stereoscopic content of the main frame 102 and embedded frame 104 more realistic. Referring to
Directing attention to
Note that although certain embodiments of a stereo effect enhancement system are illustrated in
Having described certain embodiments of a stereo effect enhancement system where multimedia streams are simultaneously presented on a display in picture-in-picture format, reference is now made to
The main frame 502 comprises one or more stereoscopic objects of a captured image, such as a person 508 at a given snapshot in time as depicted in
For purposes of illustration, as is similar for the examples depicted in
Referring to
For instance, depth information of left and right-eye images may be obtained, and the depth information is adjusted to provide a new left-eye image according to the right-eye image and the adjusted depth information (or vice versa). Though the depicted example in
In some embodiments, the stereo effect enhancement system may employ measures additional to the depth adjustment described above to make the presentation of the stereoscopic content of the main frame 502 and adjacent frame 504 more realistic. Referring to
Directing attention to
Note that although certain embodiments of a stereo effect enhancement system are illustrated in
Having described example operations of certain embodiments of a stereo effect enhancement system, attention is directed to
The computing system 900 may, for instance, comprise one or more processors 902, one or more input/output (I/O) interfaces 904, a network interface device 906, and a display 908 connected across a data bus 910. The computing system 900 may further comprise a memory 912 that includes an operating system 914 and application specific software (e.g., software logic, also referred to as executable code), such as a player application 916 in the case of implementing player functionality for the playback of media content, such as video, graphics, and/or audio (e.g., movies, music, games, etc.). In some embodiments, the player application 916 may be implemented as a software program configured to read and play back content residing on a disc 922 (or from other high definition video sources) according to the specifications defined by standards such as the Blu-ray Disc format specification, HD-DVD, etc. In some embodiments, the player application 916 may comprise decoding logic, or some embodiments may include decoding logic separate from the player application 916.
The memory 912 comprises, among other logic (e.g., software), stereo effect enhancement logic 918, which includes in one embodiment, depth analysis logic 920 and border modification logic 923. Though shown as separate modules from the player application 916, the stereo effect enhancement logic 918 may comprise modules that are packaged differently, such as being configured as a part of the player application 916 in some embodiments. In some embodiments, the depth analysis logic 920 and border modification logic 923 may be combined into a single software module, or further distributed among additional modules. The depth analysis logic 920 performs depth analysis along one or more edges of the embedded frame 104 (or adjacent frame 504) and the main frame 102 (or main frame 502). In one embodiment, the depth analysis logic 920 constructs a depth map of plural pixels located within the frames 102 (502) and 104 (504), as is known technology and hence the details are omitted here for brevity. Further, the depth analysis logic 920 determines the parallax between one or more stereoscopic objects of the two frames 102 (502) and 104 (504), and adjusts the difference in depth (e.g., parallax adjustment) so that the difference in depth is zero or a predetermined value close to zero.
The border modification logic 923 adds a discernible border around the embedded frame 104 (or adjacent frame 504), typically a rectangular border though not limited to such geometries. The border modification logic 923 further adjusts one or more properties of the border, including translucence, thickness (e.g., width), color, texture (e.g., metal, wood, etc.), and/or shape (e.g., irregular polygon versus rectangle). For instance, with regard to color, the color may have a gradient effect, or the color may have a high contrast color (compared to adjacent multimedia colors). In some embodiments, the border may resemble a photo frame. In some embodiments, the border may possess a stereoscopic effect (e.g., have depth information). For instance, the depth information of the border may have a corresponding depth value(s) that may be between the depth value of the main frame stereoscopic objects and/or background and the depth value of the embedded frame stereoscopic objects and/or background. In some embodiments, the stereoscopic effect of the border provides a gradient stereoscopic effect. In some embodiments, the border modification logic 923 may be omitted.
The processor 902 may include any custom made or commercially available processor, a central processing unit (CPU) or an auxiliary processor among several processors associated with the computing system 900, a semiconductor based microprocessor (in the form of a microchip), one or more ASICs, a plurality of suitably configured digital logic gates, and other well-known electrical configurations comprising discrete elements both individually and in various combinations to coordinate the overall operation of the computing system.
The memory 912 may include any one of a combination of volatile memory elements (e.g., random-access memory (RAM, such as DRAM, and SRAM, etc.)) and nonvolatile memory elements (e.g., ROM, hard drive, tape, CDROM, etc.). The memory 912 typically comprises the native operating system 914, one or more native applications, emulation systems, or emulated applications for any of a variety of operating systems and/or emulated hardware platforms, emulated operating systems, etc. For example, the applications may include application specific software stored on a computer readable medium (e.g., memory, persistent storage, etc.) for execution by the processor 902 and may include the stereo effect enhancement logic 918, depth analysis logic 920, and border modification logic 923. One of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that the memory 912 may, and typically will, comprise other components which have been omitted for purposes of brevity, or in some embodiments, may omit certain components.
Input/output interfaces 904 provide any number of interfaces for the input and output of data. For example, where the computing system 900 comprises a personal computer, these components may interface with a user input device, which may be a body part of a viewer (e.g., hand), keyboard, a mouse, or voice activated mechanism. Where the computing system 900 comprises a handheld device (e.g., PDA, mobile telephone), these components may interface with function keys or buttons, a touch sensitive screen, a stylus, body part, microphone, etc. The input/output interfaces 904 may further include one or more disc drives (e.g., optical disc drives, magnetic disc drives) to enable playback of multimedia content residing on the computer readable medium 922.
The network interface device 906 comprises various components used to transmit and/or receive data over a network environment. By way of example, the network interface device 906 may include a device that can communicate with both inputs and outputs, for instance, a modulator/demodulator (e.g., a modem), wireless (e.g., radio frequency (RF)) transceiver, a telephonic interface, a bridge, a router, network card, etc. The computing system 900 may further comprise mass storage (not shown). For some embodiments, the mass storage may include a data structure (e.g., database) to store image and/or data files. In some embodiments, the image and date files may be located in a remote storage device (e.g., network storage).
The display 908 may comprise a computer monitor or a plasma screen for a PC or a liquid crystal display (LCD) on a hand held device, head-mount device, or other computing device. In some embodiments, the display 908 may be separate from the computing system 900, and in some embodiments, integrated in the computing device. The display 908 may include the screen 106 described previously.
In the context of this disclosure, a “computer-readable medium” stores one or more programs and data for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The computer readable medium is non-transitory, and may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium may include, in addition to those set forth above, the following: an electrical connection (electronic) having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette (magnetic), a random access memory (RAM) (electronic), a read-only memory (ROM) (electronic), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM, EEPROM, or Flash memory) (electronic), and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM) (optical).
Having provided a detailed description of certain embodiments of stereo effect enhancement systems and methods, it should be appreciated that one embodiment of a stereo effect enhancement method 1000, implemented by the processor 902 in the computing system 900 and depicted in
In view of the foregoing disclosure, it should be appreciated that another embodiment of a stereo effect enhancement method 1100, implemented by the processor 902 in the computing system 900 and depicted in
In view of the foregoing disclosure, it should be appreciated that another embodiment of a stereo effect enhancement method 1200, implemented by the processor 902 in the computing system 900 and depicted in
Any process descriptions or blocks in flow diagrams should be understood as representing modules, segments, or portions of code which include one or more executable instructions for implementing specific logical functions or steps in the process, and alternate implementations are included within the scope of the embodiments of the present disclosure in which functions may be executed out of order from that shown or discussed, including substantially concurrently or in reverse order, and/or with one or more functions omitted in some embodiments, depending on the functionality involved, as would be understood by those reasonably skilled in the art of the present disclosure. Also, though certain architectures are illustrated in the present disclosure, it should be appreciated that the methods described herein are not necessarily limited to the disclosed architectures.
In addition, though various delineations in software logic have been depicted in the accompanying figures and described in the present disclosure, it should be appreciated that one or more of the functions performed by the various logic described herein may be combined into fewer software modules and or distributed among a greater number. Further, though certain disclosed benefits/advantages inure to certain embodiments of certain stereo effect enhancement systems, it should be understood that not every embodiment necessarily provides every benefit/advantage.
In addition, the scope of certain embodiments of the present disclosure includes embodying the functionality of certain embodiments of stereo effect enhancement systems in logic embodied in hardware and/or software-configured mediums. For instance, though described in software configured mediums, it should be appreciated that one or more of the stereo effect enhancement system and method functionality described herein may be implemented in hardware or a combination of both hardware and software.
It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are merely possible examples of implementations, merely set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of the disclosure. Many variations and modifications may be made to the above-described embodiment(s) without departing substantially from the spirit and principles of the disclosure. All such modifications and variations are intended to be included herein within the scope of this disclosure and protected by the following claims.
