Multi-camera Systems for 3D Video Production

Drastic advances of digital technologies and the Internet in this decade have made digital (still and video) cameras ubiquitous in everyday life. Moreover, computer vision technologies such as automatic focusing on human faces and image stabilization against hand vibrations have been implemented in modern cameras. This chapter first discusses the design factors of multi-camera systems for 3D video production: camera arrangement, lens and depth-of-focus, shutter speed, lighting, and background. Then three practical studio implementations at Kyoto University are introduced to demonstrate that high fidelity 3D video can be produced with modern off-the-shelf imaging devices. The latter half of the chapter discusses practical geometric and photometric calibration procedures with their quantitative performance evaluation results in the Kyoto University 3D video studios. The imaging devices and their calibration procedures introduced in this chapter can easily be implemented to start research and development of 3D video.