Hybrid depth cueing for 2D-to-3D conversion system

The three-dimensional (3D) displays provide a dramatic improvement of visual quality than the 2D displays do. The conversion of existing 2D videos to 3D videos is necessary for multimedia application. This paper presents a robust system to convert 2D videos to 3D videos. The main concepts are to extract the depth information from motion parallax of moving picture and to depth information from geometrical perspective in non-moving scene. In the first part, depthinduced motion information is reconstructed by motion vector to disparity mapping. By warping the consecutive video frames to parallel view angle with the current frame, the frame with suitable baseline is selected to generate depth using motion parallax information. However, video may not have the depth-induced motion information in every case. For scene without motion parallax, depth from geometrical perspective is applied to generate scene depth map. Scene depth map is assigned depending on the scene mode and analyzed line structure in the video. Combining these two depth cues, the stereo effect is enhanced and provide spectacular depth map. The depth map is then used to render the multi-view video for 3D display.