Thesis (MScEng)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: We present all the components needed for a fully-fledged stereo vision system, ranging from object detection through camera calibration to depth perception. We propose an efficient, automatic and practical method to calibrate cameras for use in 3D machine vision metrology. We develop an automated stereo calibration system that only requires a series of views of a manufactured calibration object in unknown positions. The system is tested against real and synthetic data, and we investigate the robustness of the proposed method compared to standard calibration practice. All the aspects of 3D stereo reconstruction is dealt with and we present the necessary algorithms to perform epipolar rectification on images as well as solving the correspondence and triangulation problems. It was found that the system performs well even in the presence of noise, and calibration is easy and requires no specialist knowledge. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Ons beskryf al die komponente van 'n omvattende stereo visie sisteem. Die kern van die sisteem is 'n effektiewe, ge-outomatiseerde en praktiese metode om kameras te kalibreer vir gebruik in 3D rekenaarvisie. Ons ontwikkel 'n outomatiese, stereo kamerakalibrasie sisteem wat slegs 'n reeks beelde van 'n kalibrasie voorwerp in onbekende posisies vereis. Die sisteem word getoets met reële en sintetiese data, en ons vergelyk die robuustheid van die metode met die standaard algoritmes. Al die aspekte van die 3D stereo rekonstruksie word behandel en ons beskryf die nodige algoritmes om epipolêre rektifikasie op beelde te doen sowel as metodes om die korrespondensie- en diepte probleme op te los. Ons wys dat die sisteem goeie resultate lewer in die aanwesigheid van ruis en dat kamerakalibrasie outomaties kan geskied sonder dat enige spesialis kennis benodig word.

Réalisée au sein du doctorat SACRe, la démarche de cette thèse est celle d'une recherche par la pratique. Elle est constituée de deux films en 3D stéréoscopique (3Ds). Ils sont accompagnés d'un manuscrit qui fait état des explorations et met en forme la réflexion menée au cours des trois années de doctorat.Dans un premier temps, la thèse s'emploie à définir la notion de continuité au cinéma. Elle conduit à l'identification des éléments requis pour l'existence de la continuité d'une part, et pour sa compréhension d'autre part, permettant ainsi d'établir un modèle de la continuité cinématographique, qui partage certains de ses principes avec d'autres domaines, tant scientifiques qu'artistiques.Nous analysons ensuite le cas singulier de la stéréoscopie, entre continuités et discontinuités. Cette étude technique et perceptive permet d'aborder pleinement les spécificités de cette technique, afin de faire l'état des lieux de la continuité dans le cinéma en 3D stéréoscopique.La recherche s'achève en mettant en lumière les possibilités artistiques inexplorées en 3Ds, parmi lesquelles celle d'enrichir la continuité stéréoscopique en s'inspirant de la façon dont l'architecture et la musique ont traité les notions de continuité et de discontinuité. Nous avons expérimenté certaines de ces possibilités au travers de deux courts métrages, dont nous rendons compte dans la dernière partie du manuscrit. / This work has been driven among the Sciences, Arts, Design and Research doctoral program (SACRe), which relies on a practice-based research. It is therefore made of two stereoscopic 3D (S3D) movies and a dissertation that reports the explorations and our reflexive approach during this three years program.The thesis first focuses on formalising the concept of continuity in cinema. This leads to enlighten elements that permits the continuity to exist on one hand, as well as those required for its understanding on the other hand, so as to define a general model of cinematographic continuity; that reveals itself to be sharing some of its principles with scientific disciplines as well as artistic ones.We then analyse the singular case of stereoscopy, between continuities and discontinuities. This technical and perceptual study enables us to apprehend its specificities, in order to examine the state of continuity in nowadays stereoscopic cinema.This work finally focuses on unexplored artistic possibilities in S3D, among which the enrichment of stereoscopic continuity, inspired by the way architecture and music have treated continuity and discontinuity issues. We have experimented some of these possibilities through two short films, as we report at the end of the dissertation.

A partir da investigação de elementos que remontam o passado de técnicas de ilusão e imersão na arte da representação da imagem, bem como teorias que condicionam a existência de uma linguagem audiovisual própria, este trabalho tem o objetivo de analisar e identificar a existência de uma linguagem própria pertinente à estereoscopia. A pesquisa toma como ponto de análise estereoscópica o filme Coraline [2009] de Henry Selick, uma animação stop motion, concebida e lançada nos cinemas 3D estereoscópicos / Through an investigation of the history of techniques of illusion and immersion in popular art and entertainment, as well as theories that determine the existence of a distinct visual language, this work aims to analyse and identify the existence of a unique narrative language exclusive to 3-D stereoscopic film-making. The research takes as its point of stereoscopic analysis the stop-motion animation movie Coraline (2009, Henry Selick) designed and launched in cinemas using the stereoscopic technique.

This thesis investigates how disparity estimation may be used to visualize an object on a 3D-screen. The first part looks into different methods of disparity estimation, and the second part examines different ways to visualize an object from one or several stereo pairs and a disparity map. Input to the system is one or several stereo pairs, and output is a sequence of images of the input scene but from more angles. This sequence of images can be shown on Setred AB's 3D-screen. The system has high real time demands and the goal is to do the disparity estimation and visualization in real time. In the first part of the thesis, three different ways to calculate disparity maps are implemented and compared. The three methods are correlation-based, local structure-based and phase-based techniques. The correlation-based methods cannot satisfy the real-time demands due to the large number of 2D-convolutions required per pixel. The local structure-based methods have too much noise and cannot satisfy the quality requirements. Therefore, the best method by far is the phase-based method. This method has been implemented in Matlab and C and comparisons between the different implementations are presented. The quality of the disparity maps is satisfying, but the real-time demands cannot yet be fulfilled. The future work is therefore to optimize the C code and move some functions to a GPU, because a GPU can perform calculations in parallel with the CPU. Another reason is that many of the calculations are related to resizing and warping, which are well-suited to implementation on a GPU.

In this day and age when 3D cinema is ever increasing in popularity and 3D television sets on the verge of becoming a reality in our homes, the media production companies are interested in looking at how they can start producing stereoscopic format media for this exciting medium. This thesis proposes a solution to parts of the stereoscopic production pipeline by examining and proposing the extent of the requirements of a plug-in to aid in the setting up and rendering of stereo pairs and ultimately proposing such a plug-in and modifying it to suit the proposed requirements. With a high emphasis on ensuring that the plug-in is capable of producing enjoyable stereoscopic content, the plug-in is tested by rendering a demanding scene previously used in factual production work. The findings of these tests ultimately lead to the evaluation of the plug-ins usefulness as a tool for not only the production studio involved but for anyone interested in generating material for this exciting medium.

Robots are required in many jobs. The jobs related to tele-operation may be very challenging and often require reaching a destination quickly and with minimum collisions. In order to succeed in these jobs, human operators are asked to tele-operate a robot manually through a user interface. The design of a user interface and of the information provided in it, become therefore critical elements for the successful completion of robot tele-operation tasks. Effective and timely robot tele-navigation mainly relies on the intuitiveness provided by the interface and on the richness and presentation of the feedback given. This project investigated the use of both haptic and visual feedbacks in a user interface for robot tele-navigation. The aim was to overcome some of the limitations observed in a state of the art works, turning what is sometimes described as contrasting into an added value to improve tele-navigation performance. The key issue is to combine different human sensory modalities in a coherent way and to benefit from 3-D vision too. The proposed new approach was inspired by how visually impaired people use walking sticks to navigate. Haptic feedback may provide helpful input to a user to comprehend distances to surrounding obstacles and information about the obstacle distribution. This was proposed to be achieved entirely relying on on-board range sensors, and by processing this input through a simple scheme that regulates magnitude and direction of the environmental force-feedback provided to the haptic device. A specific algorithm was also used to render the distribution of very close objects to provide appropriate touch sensations. Scene visualization was provided by the system and it was shown to a user coherently to haptic sensation. Different visualization configurations, from multi-viewpoint observation to 3-D visualization, were proposed and rigorously assessed through experimentations, to understand the advantages of the proposed approach and performance variations among different 3-D display technologies. Over twenty users were invited to participate in a usability study composed by two major experiments. The first experiment focused on a comparison between the proposed haptic-feedback strategy and a typical state of the art approach. It included testing with a multi-viewpoint visual observation. The second experiment investigated the performance of the proposed haptic-feedback strategy when combined with three different stereoscopic-3D visualization technologies. The results from the experiments were encouraging and showed good performance with the proposed approach and an improvement over literature approaches to haptic feedback in robot tele-operation. It was also demonstrated that 3-D visualization can be beneficial for robot tele-navigation and it will not contrast with haptic feedback if it is properly aligned to it. Performance may vary with different 3-D visualization technologies, which is also discussed in the presented work.

Objective of this master's thesis is developing and describing of human vision process and anaglyph production. The text contains individual possibilities of achieving spatial sensation from two two-dimensional images. This thesis contains an application for the anaglyph creation developed in the Matlab 2008b interface and description of its functions and properties. Created anaglyphs and the source code sample are attached. The electronic version of the thesis and application are available on the attached DVD.

This masters thesis deals with the physiology of binocular vision people for obtaining two dimensional spatial perception of images with glasses. There are developed theoretical part of the physiology of vision, then writing available methods that are now widespread for obtaining stereoscopic scene. The work also describes shooting dynamic scene using a pair of identical cameras. It focuses mainly on OFF-AXES method and deals with the topic of the settings stereoscopic base. There is also realized a practical part, which works with the capture dynamic scenes using video cameras with a automatic control of cameras distance. Automatic control is performed using the parallel port and a stepper motor. For this purpose it is designed to work in hardware support and a program for mutual communication. Filmed a short movie was screened to a group and those observers evaluated the parameters that were specified in the created poll.

This paper follows up theme of binocular vision and his working in daily life. The individual chapters contain anatomy and physiology of visual organ. In detail are discussed physical principles of binocular vision. Discussed are also development, eventual pathologies and examination methods of human binocular vision. Theoretical introduction defines the concept of stereoscopy and states overview of stereoscopic imaging methods. Paper also includes approaches to recording of three dimensional image and camera settings. Practical part of work is dedicated to the selection of shooting methods and design of dynamic scenes from daily traffic. Introduced is also the projection method of captured scenes to the group of viewers. The last chapter analyzes the method and evaluation of the experiment itself and the resulting conclusions.

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