Enhancing the audience experience during sport events: real-time processing of multiple stereoscopic cameras

From video acquisition to 3D rendering, most of the hardware and software modules required for stereoscopy are currently available in academic or industrial R&D laboratories. Some are even features of open-source libraries. However, designing a stereoscopic architecture able to perform this acquisition followed by geometrical calibration and colour correction, disparity maps computation, multi-view coding and transmission for several cameras into one dedicated server remains a challenge. This was achieved for the SkyMedia project which aimed at providing an enhanced experience for the audience, organising staff and performers of an event. Compromises were required, from lower-resolution depth estimation to limited MultiView Coding predictions, but in the end the project system was fit to the task and delivered contents to the various people evolving around the 2012 Turin Marathon.