A unified trifocal system for advanced depth-based 3D capture

While benefits of depth maps for content creation and three-dimensional (3D) post-production for multiview displays are already widely known, their usage as an alternative stereo 3D (S3D) production workflow is becoming visible. In addition, the generation of reliable depth maps is still an active research topic. This paper describes a comprehensive 3D capture infrastructure approach comprising a trifocal camera system entirely based on Ethernet interface technology. This is a dedicated field recording solution realized with solid state technology capable of recording up to seven uncompressed "high frame rate" camera streams in parallel, and algorithms for trifocal depth estimation enabling realtime depth preview on set, as well as high-quality depth extraction offline. The new interface approach harmonizes and consolidates image data, depth information, and general metadata. The system provides a new 3D production workflow with no need for scene-dependent adjustments, but the possibility to calculate a virtual view with any favored baseline during post-production.