Real-time generation and presentation of view-dependent binocular stereo images using a sequence of omnidirectional images

This paper presents a new method to generate and present arbitrarily directional binocular stereo images from a sequence of omnidirectional images. A sequence of omnidirectional images is taken by moving an omnidirectional image sensor in a static real environment. The motion of the omnidirectional image sensor is constrained to a plane. The sensor's route and speed are known. In the proposed method, a fixed length of the sequence is buffered in a computer to generate arbitrarily directional binocular stereo images by combining captured rays. Using the method a user can look around a scene in the distance with rich 3D sensation without significant time delay. This paper describes the principle of real-time generation of binocular stereo images. In addition, we introduce a prototype telepresence system of view-dependent stereo image generation and presentation.