QualityVR

Overview:

360-degree video, also called live-action virtual reality (VR), is one of the latest and most powerful trends in immersive media, with an increasing potential for the next decades. In particular, head-mounted display (HMD) technology like e.g. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR is maturing and entering professional and consumer markets. On the other side, capture devices like e.g. Facebook’s Surround 360 camera, Nokia Ozo and Google Odyssee are some of the latest technologies to capture 360-degree video in stereoscopic 3D (S3D).

However, capturing 360-degree videos is not an easy task as there are many physical limitations which need to be overcome, especially for capturing and post-processing in S3D. In general, such limitations result in artifacts which cause visual discomfort when watching the content with a HMD. The artifacts or issues can be divided into three categories: binocular rivalry issues, conflicts of depth cues and artifacts which occur in both monocular and stereoscopic 360-degree content production. Issues of the first two categories have been investigated for standard S3D content e.g. for cinema screens and 3D-TV. The third category consists of typical artifacts which only occur in multi-camera systems used for panorama capturing. As native S3D 360-degree video production is still very error-prone, especially with respect to binocular rivalry issues, many high-end S3D productions are shot in 2D 360-degree and post-converted to S3D.

Within the project QualityVR, our group is working on video analysis tools to detect, assess and partly correct artefacts which occur in stereoscopic 360-degrees video production, in particular, conflicts of depth cues and binocular rivalry issues.

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