Scientists at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and the UC San Diego division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) are working to bring three-dimensional video feeds into the operating room by leveraging the use of autostereoscopic displays. Their hope is that one day surgeons will not only be able to perform minimally invasive surgeries in 3D, but also be able to do so without having to wear cumbersome 3D glasses.
Since 3D stereo is actually comprised of two images (one for the left-eye view and one for the right-eye view), both images must be properly aligned in order for the viewer to accurately perceive the 3D effect. For many 3D applications, virtual views need to be synthesized from the existing two images to allow viewers to see a 3D scene from another perspective. When these virtual views are generated, however, previously hidden regions in the scene (perhaps occluded by an object in the foreground) become uncovered, which means that "holes" appear in the virtual images.
The researchers are looking at ways to fill in holes by extrapolating neighboring information from, say, the left-eye view to fill a hole in the right-eye view, or to improve the method for matching up points in one view to points in another view (also known as disparity estimation).
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