IBC today announces that the IBC2012 Best Conference Paper has been awarded to a group of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute. Their paper looks at a critical issue for broadcasters who want to move 3D television into the mainstream: the ability to create the signals for glasses-free 3D displays from two-camera stereoscopic origination.

The IBC Best Conference Paper Award is presented each year for the paper which, in the opinion of the IBC Technical Papers Committee, best matches innovation with clarity of expression. This year’s winners are Christian Riechert, Frederik Zilly, Peter Kauff, Jens Guther and Ralf Schafer from the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications Heinrich Hertz Institute, for their paper “Fully Automatic Stereo-to-Multiview Conversion in Autostereoscopic Displays”. The paper will be delivered in the session “Stereoscopic 3D Content and Display – Developments and Diagnoses” on Sunday 9 September at 14:00 as part of the Advances in Technology stream within the IBC Conference.

The premise of the paper is that 3D television to the home will only achieve mass popularity when it can be enjoyed by multiple viewers without the need for glasses. Current production techniques are stereoscopic, using two cameras and image chains and delivering an image to each eye using special glasses. Autostereoscopic displays – glasses-free 3D – require more than two views: at least five and preferably very many more. What the Fraunhofer paper describes is the design of an algorithm, capable of being implemented in relatively low cost hardware, which will go inside the television receiver to convert stereo 3D to the required number of multiview images, in real time.

“This is a great honour for me and all my co-authors,” said Christian Riechert, who will collect the award on behalf of his colleagues. “Realtime conversion of stereo content to multi-view for autostereoscopic displays is indeed a hot issue in the 3D community. It is a pleasure for a team of researchers like ours to be able to offer solutions to such a challenging task.”

“This is important, relevant work, and the detail of their research is impressive,” said Nick Lodge, Chair of the IBC Technical Papers Committee. “Because of the highly mathematical nature of the work it could have been very difficult to understand, but the authors have described clearly why each stage of their algorithm is necessary, how they optimised it and how well it performs.”

“The technology is leading edge, but it is responding to a real market need, to open up the popularity of 3D in the home,” Lodge added. “The IBC Best Conference Paper Award recognises not just good science but the communication of good science and this is a worthy winner.”

The IBC2012 Best Conference Paper Award will be presented to Christian Riechert as part of the IBC Awards Ceremony, to be held on Sunday 9 September at 18:30. The IBC Awards Ceremony is open to all IBC attendees.

www.ibc.org/awards