Method and system for disparity adjustment during stereoscopic zoom

• US 9,294,751 B2
• Filed: 12/22/2011
• Issued: 03/22/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/09/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Mattel Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Mattel Incorporated
• Inventors: Krisman, John Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Ortiz Criado, Jorge L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Fereja, Samuel D
• Application Number:
  US13/995,213
• Publication Number:
  US 20150163475A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,552 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/128 Adjusting depth or disparity

Abstract

A method for zooming a stereoscopic image appearing on an electronic display of a stereoscopic image displaying device. The stereoscopic image has horizontal disparity and is generated by an electronic processor from stereoscopic image data stored in a memory as a left-eye image pixel map and a right-eye image pixel map. The horizontal disparity of the stereoscopic image data is adjusted to produce disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data based on a heuristic defining a relationship between a user zoom request, a predetermined stereoscopic factor and a relative horizontal shift between the left-eye image pixel map and the right-eye image pixel map. A zoomed stereoscopic image corresponding to the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data is displayed.

Claims

1. A method for zooming a stereoscopic image appearing on an electronic display of a stereoscopic image displaying device in response to receiving a user zoom request comprising a zoom magnitude, the stereoscopic image comprising a left-eye image and a right-eye image having relative horizontal disparity and being generated by a an electronic processor from stereoscopic image data stored in a memory as a left-eye image pixel map comprising left-eye pixels and a right-eye image pixel map comprising right-eye pixels, the method comprising the steps of:

scaling the stereoscopic image data to produce scaled stereoscopic image data in response to the user zoom request;

adjusting the horizontal disparity of the scaled stereoscopic image data to produce disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data based on a heuristic defining a relationship between the user zoom request, a predetermined stereoscopic factor F_s within a range of about 35 to 45 and a relative horizontal shift between the left-eye pixels in the left-eye image pixel map and the right-eye pixels in the right-eye image pixel map; and

displaying a zoomed stereoscopic image on the display corresponding to the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the relationship defined by the heuristic is the equation:

S_h=W_psd×

(M_z/F_s)

where S_h is the horizontal shift in pixels,

W_psd is the horizontal width of the stereoscopic image in pixels,

M_z is the zoom magnitude in percent, and

F_s is the predetermined stereoscopic factor.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the user zoom request additionally comprises a stereoscopic adjustment factor and the adjusting the horizontal disparity step adjusts the predetermined stereoscopic factor based on the stereoscopic adjustment factor.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user zoom request additionally comprises a position adjustment factor and the adjusting the horizontal disparity step adjusts a depth of the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data based on the position adjustment factor.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of cropping the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data before the generating step.

6. A method for zooming a stereoscopic image appearing on an electronic display of a stereoscopic image displaying device in response to receiving a user zoom request comprising a zoom magnitude, the stereoscopic image comprising a left-eye image and a right-eye image having relative horizontal disparity and being generated by a an electronic processor from stereoscopic image data stored in a memory as a left-eye image pixel map comprising left-eye pixels and a right-eye image pixel map comprising right-eye pixels, the method comprising the steps of:

scaling the stereoscopic image data to produce scaled stereoscopic image data in response to the user zoom request;

adjusting the horizontal disparity of the scaled stereoscopic image data to produce disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data based on a heuristic defining a relationship between the user zoom request, a predetermined stereoscopic factor and a relative horizontal shift between the left-eye pixels in the left-eye image pixel map and the right-eye pixels in the right-eye image pixel map; and

displaying a zoomed stereoscopic image on the display corresponding to the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data,

wherein the user zoom request additionally comprises a stereoscopic adjustment factor and a position adjustment factor and the adjusting the horizontal disparity step adjusts the predetermined stereoscopic factor based on the stereoscopic adjustment factor and adjusts a depth of the disparity-adjusted, scaled stereoscopic image data based on the position adjustment factor, and wherein the relationship defined by the heuristic is an equation;

S_h=A_pos×

W_pxl×

(M_z/(F_s+A_s)

where S_h is the horizontal shift in pixels,

A_pos is the position adjustment factor

W_pxl is the horizontal width of the stereoscopic image in pixels,

M_z is the zoom magnitude in percent,

F_s is the predetermined stereoscopic factor, and

A_s is the stereoscopic adjustment factor.

7. A stereoscopic image generating device comprising:

an electronic display;

electronic memory;

an electronic processor in communication with the display and the electronic memory;

a zoom-selector user interface in communication with the processor, the zoom-selector user interface configured to receive as input a user zoom request comprising a zoom magnitude;

stereoscopic image data stored in the memory, the stereoscopic image data comprising a left-eye image pixel map comprising left-eye pixels and a right-eye image pixel map comprising right-eye pixels, the left-eye image pixel map having horizontal disparity with respect to the right-eye image pixel map, and

one or more programs stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the electronic processor, the one or more programs comprising;

image generation instructions generating on the display an image corresponding to the stereoscopic image data; and

stereoscopic image zoom instructions encoding the method of claim 6.

8. The stereoscopic image generating device of claim 7, wherein the zoom-selector user interface is provided by a remote control unit in wireless communication with the electronic processor, the remote control having control electronics in electrical communication with a button switch and a contact-sensitive display, the control electronics configured to determining whether one or more contacts with the contact-sensitive display or the button switch represents a user zoom request and if a user zoom request has been made transmitting the user zoom request to the electronic processor.