Cine en 3D

Este proyecto pretende documentar el proceso completo de una producción audiovisual en 3D. Para ello, se hace un recorrido por cada una de sus etapas, desde los primeros pasos de la escritura hasta que la película llega a los espectadores. Como el flujo de trabajo para realizar una película es enorme, el estudio se centra exclusivamente en las peculiaridades estereoscópicas, dejando al margen los procesos habituales de una producción convencional. El proyecto está dividido en cinco grandes bloques, centrados en cada etapa de producción. El primer capítulo es una introducción al mundo tridimensional, que sienta las bases de la percepción humana para entender cómo funcionan todas las demás etapas. Además, se hace un repaso por los distintos avances producidos en el campo estereoscópico a lo largo de la historia. El segundo capítulo se centra en la pre-producción, el primer paso para llevar a cabo cualquier proyecto audiovisual, consistente en la planificación del trabajo a realizar y la organización de los distintos elementos que serán necesarios durante el rodaje, teniendo en cuenta desde el primer momento la tercera dimensión. El tercer capítulo está dedicado a la grabación de las imágenes, centrándose principalmente en las características y configuraciones de las cámaras o rigs con los que se obtienen las dos secuencias. El cuarto capítulo aborda la percepción de la película 3D, explicando las características de los variados sistemas de visualización de las imágenes grabadas, que dan a su vez diferentes sistemas de proyección estereoscópica. El quinto y último capítulo se centra en el procesado digital de las imágenes estéreo, que permite juntar el material grabado, corregirlo o perfeccionarlo, y darle la forma adecuada de película que llega al público final. La documentación escrita en español sobre todas estas fases es algo escasa, centrándose normalmente en alguna parte concreta de la cadena, por lo que el proyecto trata también de llenar ese vacío, explicándolo de manera sencilla para hacerlo accesible y factible para toda persona interesada. ABSTRACT. This project has the intention of document the complete process of 3D audiovisual production. For that reason, we make a journey through each of its stages, from the first steps of writing until the film reaches the final viewers. Since the workflow for a film is huge, the study focuses exclusively on the stereoscopic peculiarities, leaving aside the usual processes of conventional production. The Project is divided into five major sections focused on each stage of production. The first chapter is an introduction to three-dimensional world, which lays the foundation of human perception to understand how the other stages work. In addition, we review the various advances in the stereoscopic field throughout history. The second chapter focuses on the pre-production, the first step in carrying out any audiovisual project, including the design of all the works to do and the organization of the different elements that will be needed during filming, taking into account the third dimension from the first moment. The third chapter is devoted to the image recording, focusing mainly on the features and the settings of the cameras or rigs used to obtain the two sequences. The fourth chapter deals with the 3D film perception, explaining the characteristics of the various systems used for displaying the recorded images, which, in turn, give different stereoscopic projection systems. The fifth and final chapter focuses on the digital processing of stereo images, which allows collecting all the recorded material, correcting or improving it, and giving it the proper style for a film that reaches the end consumer. The documents written in Spanish about all these phases are somewhat sparse, usually focusing on a particular part of the chain, so the project also aims to fill that gap, with simple explanations in order to make it accessible and doable for anyone interested.

CLP Projection for Constraint Handling Rules

This paper introduces and studies the notion of CLP projection for Constraint Handling Rules (CHR). The CLP projection consists of a naive translation of CHR programs into Constraint Logic Programs (CLP). We show that the CLP projection provides a safe operational and declarative approximation for CHR programs. We demónstrate moreover that a confluent CHR program has a least model, which is precisely equal to the least model of its CLP projection (closing henee a ten year-old conjecture by Abdenader et al.). Finally, we illustrate how the notion of CLP projection can be used in practice to apply CLP analyzers to CHR. In particular, we show results from applying AProVE to prove termination, and CiaoPP to infer both complexity upper bounds and types for CHR programs.

Adaptive protection scheme for MVC-encoded stereoscopic video streaming in IP-based networks

We present an adaptive unequal error protection (UEP) strategy built on the 1-D interleaved parity Application Layer Forward Error Correction (AL-FEC) code for protecting the transmission of stereoscopic 3D video content encoded with Multiview Video Coding (MVC) through IP-based networks. Our scheme targets the minimization of quality degradation produced by packet losses during video transmission in time-sensitive application scenarios. To that end, based on a novel packet-level distortion model, it selects in real time the most suitable packets within each Group of Pictures (GOP) to be protected and the most convenient FEC technique parameters, i.e., the size of the FEC generator matrix. In order to make these decisions, it considers the relevance of the packet, the behavior of the channel, and the available bitrate for protection purposes. Simulation results validate both the distortion model introduced to estimate the importance of packets and the optimization of the FEC technique parameter values.

NAMA3DS1-COSPAD1: Subjective video quality assessment database on coding conditions introducing freely available high quality 3D stereoscopic sequences

Research in stereoscopic 3D coding, transmission and subjective assessment methodology depends largely on the availability of source content that can be used in cross-lab evaluations. While several studies have already been presented using proprietary content, comparisons between the studies are difficult since discrepant contents are used. Therefore in this paper, a freely available dataset of high quality Full-HD stereoscopic sequences shot with a semiprofessional 3D camera is introduced in detail. The content was designed to be suited for usage in a wide variety of applications, including high quality studies. A set of depth maps was calculated from the stereoscopic pair. As an application example, a subjective assessment has been performed using coding and spatial degradations. The Absolute Category Rating with Hidden Reference method was used. The observers were instructed to vote on video quality only. Results of this experiment are also freely available and will be presented in this paper as a first step towards objective video quality measurement for 3DTV.

Depth filtering for auto-stereoscopic mobile devices

In this work we address a scenario where 3D content is transmitted to a mobile terminal with 3D display capabilities. We consider the use of 2D plus depth format to represent the 3D content and focus on the generation of synthetic views in the terminal. We evaluate different types of smoothing filters that are applied to depth maps with the aim of reducing the disoccluded regions. The evaluation takes into account the reduction of holes in the synthetic view as well as the presence of geometrical distortion caused by the smoothing operation. The selected filter has been included within an implemented module for the VideoLan Client (VLC) software in order to render 3D content from the 2D plus depth data format.

Evolution of extreme temperature events in short term climate projection for Iberian Peninsula

Extreme events of maximum and minimum temperatures are a main hazard for agricultural production in Iberian Peninsula. For this purpose, in this study we analyze projections of their evolution that could be valid for the next decade, represented in this study by the 30-year period 2004-2034 (target period). For this purpose two kinds of data were used in this study: 1) observations from the station network of AEMET (Spanish National Meteorological Agency) for five Spanish locations, and 2) simulated data at a resolution of 50 50 km horizontal grid derived from the outputs of twelve Regional Climate Models (RCMs) taken from project ENSEMBLES (van der Linden and Mitchell, 2009), with a bias correction (Dosio and Paruolo, 2011; Dosio et al., 2012) regarding the observational dataset Spain02 (Herrera et al., 2012). To validate the simulated climate, the available period of observations was compared to a baseline period (1964-1994) of simulated climate for all locations. Then, to analyze the changes for the present/very next future, probability of extreme temperature events for 2004-2034 were compared to that of the baseline period. Although only minor changes are expected, small variations in variability may have a significant impact in crop performance.

Subjective quality study of adaptive streaming of monoscopic and stereoscopic video

Nowadays, HTTP adaptive streaming (HAS) has become a reliable distribution technology offering significant advantages in terms of both user perceived Quality of Experience (QoE) and resource utilization for content and network service providers. By trading-off the video quality, HAS is able to adapt to the available bandwidth and display requirements so that it can deliver the video content to a variety of devices over the Internet. However, until now there is not enough knowledge of how the adaptation techniques affect the end user's visual experience. Therefore, this paper presents a comparative analysis of different bitrate adaptation strategies in adaptive streaming of monoscopic and stereoscopic video. This has been done through a subjective experiment of testing the end-user response to the video quality variations, considering the visual comfort issue. The experimental outcomes have made a good insight into the factors that can influence on the QoE of different adaptation strategies.

Visual attention and perception models for assessing quality in 2D and 3D stereoscopic video

La medida de calidad de vídeo sigue siendo necesaria para definir los criterios que caracterizan una señal que cumpla los requisitos de visionado impuestos por el usuario. Las nuevas tecnologías, como el vídeo 3D estereoscópico o formatos más allá de la alta definición, imponen nuevos criterios que deben ser analizadas para obtener la mayor satisfacción posible del usuario. Entre los problemas detectados durante el desarrollo de esta tesis doctoral se han determinado fenómenos que afectan a distintas fases de la cadena de producción audiovisual y tipo de contenido variado. En primer lugar, el proceso de generación de contenidos debe encontrarse controlado mediante parámetros que eviten que se produzca el disconfort visual y, consecuentemente, fatiga visual, especialmente en lo relativo a contenidos de 3D estereoscópico, tanto de animación como de acción real. Por otro lado, la medida de calidad relativa a la fase de compresión de vídeo emplea métricas que en ocasiones no se encuentran adaptadas a la percepción del usuario. El empleo de modelos psicovisuales y diagramas de atención visual permitirían ponderar las áreas de la imagen de manera que se preste mayor importancia a los píxeles que el usuario enfocará con mayor probabilidad. Estos dos bloques se relacionan a través de la definición del término saliencia. Saliencia es la capacidad del sistema visual para caracterizar una imagen visualizada ponderando las áreas que más atractivas resultan al ojo humano. La saliencia en generación de contenidos estereoscópicos se refiere principalmente a la profundidad simulada mediante la ilusión óptica, medida en términos de distancia del objeto virtual al ojo humano. Sin embargo, en vídeo bidimensional, la saliencia no se basa en la profundidad, sino en otros elementos adicionales, como el movimiento, el nivel de detalle, la posición de los píxeles o la aparición de caras, que serán los factores básicos que compondrán el modelo de atención visual desarrollado. Con el objetivo de detectar las características de una secuencia de vídeo estereoscópico que, con mayor probabilidad, pueden generar disconfort visual, se consultó la extensa literatura relativa a este tema y se realizaron unas pruebas subjetivas preliminares con usuarios. De esta forma, se llegó a la conclusión de que se producía disconfort en los casos en que se producía un cambio abrupto en la distribución de profundidades simuladas de la imagen, aparte de otras degradaciones como la denominada “violación de ventana”. A través de nuevas pruebas subjetivas centradas en analizar estos efectos con diferentes distribuciones de profundidades, se trataron de concretar los parámetros que definían esta imagen. Los resultados de las pruebas demuestran que los cambios abruptos en imágenes se producen en entornos con movimientos y disparidades negativas elevadas que producen interferencias en los procesos de acomodación y vergencia del ojo humano, así como una necesidad en el aumento de los tiempos de enfoque del cristalino. En la mejora de las métricas de calidad a través de modelos que se adaptan al sistema visual humano, se realizaron también pruebas subjetivas que ayudaron a determinar la importancia de cada uno de los factores a la hora de enmascarar una determinada degradación. Los resultados demuestran una ligera mejora en los resultados obtenidos al aplicar máscaras de ponderación y atención visual, los cuales aproximan los parámetros de calidad objetiva a la respuesta del ojo humano. ABSTRACT Video quality assessment is still a necessary tool for defining the criteria to characterize a signal with the viewing requirements imposed by the final user. New technologies, such as 3D stereoscopic video and formats of HD and beyond HD oblige to develop new analysis of video features for obtaining the highest user’s satisfaction. Among the problems detected during the process of this doctoral thesis, it has been determined that some phenomena affect to different phases in the audiovisual production chain, apart from the type of content. On first instance, the generation of contents process should be enough controlled through parameters that avoid the occurrence of visual discomfort in observer’s eye, and consequently, visual fatigue. It is especially necessary controlling sequences of stereoscopic 3D, with both animation and live-action contents. On the other hand, video quality assessment, related to compression processes, should be improved because some objective metrics are adapted to user’s perception. The use of psychovisual models and visual attention diagrams allow the weighting of image regions of interest, giving more importance to the areas which the user will focus most probably. These two work fields are related together through the definition of the term saliency. Saliency is the capacity of human visual system for characterizing an image, highlighting the areas which result more attractive to the human eye. Saliency in generation of 3DTV contents refers mainly to the simulated depth of the optic illusion, i.e. the distance from the virtual object to the human eye. On the other hand, saliency is not based on virtual depth, but on other features, such as motion, level of detail, position of pixels in the frame or face detection, which are the basic features that are part of the developed visual attention model, as demonstrated with tests. Extensive literature involving visual comfort assessment was looked up, and the development of new preliminary subjective assessment with users was performed, in order to detect the features that increase the probability of discomfort to occur. With this methodology, the conclusions drawn confirmed that one common source of visual discomfort was when an abrupt change of disparity happened in video transitions, apart from other degradations, such as window violation. New quality assessment was performed to quantify the distribution of disparities over different sequences. The results confirmed that abrupt changes in negative parallax environment produce accommodation-vergence mismatches derived from the increasing time for human crystalline to focus the virtual objects. On the other side, for developing metrics that adapt to human visual system, additional subjective tests were developed to determine the importance of each factor, which masks a concrete distortion. Results demonstrated slight improvement after applying visual attention to objective metrics. This process of weighing pixels approximates the quality results to human eye’s response.

Calibración geométrica de cámaras no métricas. Estudio de metodologías y modelos matemáticos de distorsión

La Fotogrametría, como ciencia y técnica de obtención de información tridimensional del espacio objeto a partir de imágenes bidimensionales, requiere de medidas de precisión y en ese contexto, la calibración geométrica de cámaras ocupa un lugar importante. El conocimiento de la geometría interna de la cámara es fundamental para lograr mayor precisión en las medidas realizadas. En Fotogrametría Aérea se utilizan cámaras métricas (fabricadas exclusivamente para aplicaciones cartográficas), que incluyen objetivos fotográficos con sistemas de lentes complejos y de alta calidad. Pero en Fotogrametría de Objeto Cercano se está trabajando cada vez con más asiduidad con cámaras no métricas, con ópticas de peor calidad que exigen una calibración geométrica antes o después de cada trabajo. El proceso de calibración encierra tres conceptos fundamentales: modelo de cámara, modelo de distorsión y método de calibración. El modelo de cámara es un modelo matemático que aproxima la transformación proyectiva original a la realidad física de las lentes. Ese modelo matemático incluye una serie de parámetros entre los que se encuentran los correspondientes al modelo de distorsión, que se encarga de corregir los errores sistemáticos de la imagen. Finalmente, el método de calibración propone el método de estimación de los parámetros del modelo matemático y la técnica de optimización a emplear. En esta Tesis se propone la utilización de un patrón de calibración bidimensional que se desplaza en la dirección del eje óptico de la cámara, ofreciendo así tridimensionalidad a la escena fotografiada. El patrón incluye un número elevado de marcas, lo que permite realizar ensayos con distintas configuraciones geométricas. Tomando el modelo de proyección perspectiva (o pinhole) como modelo de cámara, se realizan ensayos con tres modelos de distorsión diferentes, el clásico de distorsión radial y tangencial propuesto por D.C. Brown, una aproximación por polinomios de Legendre y una interpolación bicúbica. De la combinación de diferentes configuraciones geométricas y del modelo de distorsión más adecuado, se llega al establecimiento de una metodología de calibración óptima. Para ayudar a la elección se realiza un estudio de las precisiones obtenidas en los distintos ensayos y un control estereoscópico de un panel test construido al efecto. ABSTRACT Photogrammetry, as science and technique for obtaining three-dimensional information of the space object from two-dimensional images, requires measurements of precision and in that context, the geometric camera calibration occupies an important place. The knowledge of the internal geometry of the camera is fundamental to achieve greater precision in measurements made. Metric cameras (manufactured exclusively for cartographic applications), including photographic lenses with complex lenses and high quality systems are used in Aerial Photogrammetry. But in Close Range Photogrammetry is working increasingly more frequently with non-metric cameras, worst quality optical components which require a geometric calibration before or after each job. The calibration process contains three fundamental concepts: camera model, distortion model and method of calibration. The camera model is a mathematical model that approximates the original projective transformation to the physical reality of the lenses. The mathematical model includes a series of parameters which include the correspondents to the model of distortion, which is in charge of correcting the systematic errors of the image. Finally, the calibration method proposes the method of estimation of the parameters of the mathematical modeling and optimization technique to employ. This Thesis is proposing the use of a pattern of two dimensional calibration that moves in the direction of the optical axis of the camera, thus offering three-dimensionality to the photographed scene. The pattern includes a large number of marks, which allows testing with different geometric configurations. Taking the projection model perspective (or pinhole) as a model of camera, tests are performed with three different models of distortion, the classical of distortion radial and tangential proposed by D.C. Brown, an approximation by Legendre polynomials and bicubic interpolation. From the combination of different geometric configurations and the most suitable distortion model, brings the establishment of a methodology for optimal calibration. To help the election, a study of the information obtained in the various tests and a purpose built test panel stereoscopic control is performed.