Superview 3D image warping for visibility gap errors

3D image warping is an image-based rendering technique that allows nearby views of a 3D environment to be efficiently extrapolated from a single 2D reference image that includes depth information. This method allows the real-time rendering of a virtual environment on low powered consumer devices such as PDAs, cellular phones, eBooks, etc. However one major drawback with this method is the frequent occurrence of visibility gap errors caused by a limited field of view. Visibility gaps are regions for which the new viewpoint has no information and often occur during a viewpoint rotation or lateral translation. The resulting warped image contains significant areas of unsightly holes. This paper proposes using a reference image larger than the display size with a greater field of view (superview), to reduce or eliminate visibility gap errors. However warping a larger reference image increases rendering time. In order to address the problem of the reduced frame-rate, acceleration methods such as image sub-sampling, pixel averaging and clipping are presented. It is concluded that use of an oversize reference image in conjunction with sub-sampling and clipping of the reference image produces a better quality warped image for a given frame-rate.