A modular cross-platform GPU-based approach for flexible 3D video playback

Different compression formats for stereo and multiview based 3D video is being standardized and software players capable of decoding and presenting these formats onto different display types is a vital part in the commercialization and evolution of 3D video. However, the number of publicly available software video players capable of decoding and playing multiview 3D video is still quite limited. This paper describes the design and implementation of a GPU-based real-time 3D video playback solution, built on top of cross-platform, open source libraries for video decoding and hardware accelerated graphics. A software architecture is presented that efficiently process and presents high definition 3D video in real-time and in a flexible manner support both current 3D video formats and emerging standards. Moreover, a set of bottlenecks in the processing of 3D video content in a GPU-based real-time 3D video playback solution is identified and discussed.