Shape-Preserving Object Depth Control for Stereoscopic Images

In the field of 3-D technology, it is interesting as well as meaningful issue to control object depth in 3-D space. Recently, some depth control methods for stereoscopic images have been proposed, which usually employ depth map or directly process color images to implement depth control. There are two main disadvantages for these methods. First, the results of these methods usually suffer from object deformation and holes. Second, these methods are prone to cause undesired object size changing in 3-D space. To address these issues, we propose a shape-preserving object depth control method for stereoscopic images. First, a novel depth mapping model is presented for calculating the ideal coordinates of the key points in depth control, so that the shape of the object can be well preserved. Afterward, the image content-based constraints are used to further preserve the structure of the object and its background. Finally, the warping technology is introduced to deal with images optimally as well as to avoid holes. Experimental results show that the proposed method can control object depth and preserve the shape of the object effectively without sensible background distortion.