Autostereoscopic display

• US 7,583,307 B2
• Filed: 11/22/2005
• Issued: 09/01/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Hitachi Displays Limited (Japan Display Incorporated)
• Inventors: Oikawa, Michio, Sakai, Hideyuki, Yamasaki, Masami, Koike, Takafumi, Minakawa, Tsuyoshi
• Primary Examiner(s): Ometz; David L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Berhan; Ahmed A.
• Application Number:
  US11/286,195
• Publication Number:
  US 20060132916A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,379 Days
• Field of Search: 348/333.01, 348/46, 348/51, 348/333.02, 345/6, 345/426, 345/53, 359/463
• US Class Current: 348/333.01
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 30/27 involving lenticular arrays
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/305 using lenticular lenses, e.g. arrangements of cylindrical lenses
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/327 Calibration thereof

Abstract

In a stereoscopic display system, comprising a display and a lens array, it is difficult to manufacture the lens array with lens spacing at high accuracy as designed, and it is also difficult to attain high installation accuracy when the display and the lens array are combined together.

An image of a stereoscopic display 27 with a display 1 and a lens array 2 integrated with each other is taken by a camera 3, and a positional relation of each pixel of the display 1 and each lens center of the lens array 2 is determined by a measuring system 4. Based on the matching positional relation information of the lenses and the pixels thus acquired, a stereoscopic image generating/outputting system 12 generates a stereoscopic image and supplies the image to the stereoscopic display 27.

Claims

1. An autostereoscopic display, comprising a display for displaying an image and a lens array where a plurality of lenses are provided to match with a plurality of images of said display, wherein:

a stereoscopic image generating/outputting system is provided to generate a stereoscopic image by using a lens-pixel matching positional relation information to indicate as to which position of the image of the display the center of each lens in said lens array matches with; and

the stereoscopic image generated by said stereoscopic image generating/outputting system is displayed on said display,

wherein an image is taken on a part of the display and the lens array integrated with each other at a position where optical axis of the camera concurs with optical axis of each lens by using a camera of distortion correctable type, a matching positional relation of a part of the lenses and the pixels is obtained by using a plurality of the pickup images by changing position of the pixel to be displayed on the display, and, for the remaining lenses, the information is obtained by interpolation from the lens-pixel matching positional relation of said part of the lenses.

2. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 1, wherein the lens-pixel matching positional relation information is obtained by a processing to take an image of the display and the lens array integrated with each other by a camera of distortion correctable type and to estimate positional relation of the display and the pickup image from external configuration of the display, and also by a processing to estimate each lens center of the lens array from the pickup image,

wherein said stereoscopic image generating system generates a stereoscopic image by using said lens-pixel matching positional relation information based on image data from multiple viewpoints and by interpolation based the image data from multiple viewpoints closest to position and direction of the ray passing through each pixel and each lens center.

3. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 2, wherein said lens-pixel matching positional relation information is recorded in a nonvolatile memory for each display, and a stereoscopic image is generated by acquiring said lens-pixel matching positional relation information from the display at the stereoscopic image generating system.

4. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 2, wherein said lens-pixel matching positional relation information is recorded on a storage medium independent from the display for each display, and said stereoscopic image generating system acquires said lens-pixel matching positional relation information via said storage medium.

5. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 1, wherein said stereoscopic image generating system generates a stereoscopic image by obtaining information on color and brightness at a point closest to an observer among 3-dimensional objects on the ray passing through each pixel and each lens center from 3-dimensional data by utilizing said lens-pixel matching positional relation information.

6. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 1, wherein said lens-pixel matching positional relation information is recorded in a nonvolatile memory for each display, and a stereoscopic image is generated by acquiring said lens-pixel matching positional relation information from the display at the stereoscopic image generating system.

7. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 1, wherein said lens-pixel matching positional relation information is recorded on a storage medium independent from the display for each display, and said stereoscopic image generating system acquires said lens-pixel matching positional relation information via said storage medium.

8. An autostereoscopic display according to claim 1, wherein only the pixels taken through each lens are displayed when image is taken by a camera of distortion correctable type by using the lens-pixel matching positional relation information obtained by said interpolation, there are a step to take image by camera and a step to detect a region where the pixels do not match correctly, and for the region not correctly matching, the lens-pixel matching positional relation information is obtained again by a processing to take an image of the display and the lens array integrated with each other using a camera of correctable distortion type, and to estimate positional relation between the display and the pickup image from external configuration of the display, and also by a processing to estimate each lens center of the lens array from the pickup image.

9. A stereoscopic image generating system, comprising a display for displaying images and a lens array where a plurality of lens to match with a plurality of pixels of said display are provided and for displaying a stereoscopic image on said display, wherein:

a stereoscopic image is generated by using a lens-pixel matching positional relation information to indicate as to which position of the pixel of the display the center of each lens of said lens array matches with,

a stereoscopic image is generated by interpolation based on image data from multiple viewpoints closest to position and direction of a ray passing through each pixel and each lens center by utilizing said lens-pixel matching positional relation information based on image data from multiple viewpoints.

10. A method for generating a stereoscopic image to display the stereoscopic image on a display in a system, which comprises a display for display images and a lens array where a plurality of lenses to match with a plurality of pixels of said display are arranged, said method comprising steps of:

generating said stereoscopic image by using the lens-pixel matching positional relation information as to which position of the pixel of the display the center of each lens of the lens array matches with; and

generating a stereoscopic image by interpolation of image data from multiple viewpoint closest to position and direction of a ray passing through each pixel and each lens center by using said lens-pixel matching positional relation information based on image data from multiple viewpoint.