An Overview of 3D Video and Free Viewpoint Video

An overview of 3D video and free viewpoint video is given in this paper. Free viewpoint video allows the user to freely navigate within real world visual scenes, as known from virtual worlds in computer graphics. 3D video provides the user with a 3D depth impression of the observed scene, which is also known as stereo video. In that sense as functionalities, 3D video and free viewpoint video are not mutually exclusive but can very well be combined in a single system. Research in this area combines computer graphics, computer vision and visual Communications. It spans the whole media processing chain from capture to display and the design of systems has to take all parts into account. The conclusion is that the necessary technology including standard media formats for 3D video and free viewpoint video is available or will be available in the future, and that there is a clear demand from industry and user side for such new types of visual media.