A free stereoscopic firmware update on Sony Computer Entertainment's PlayStation® 3 console provides the potential to
increase enormously the popularity of stereoscopic 3D in the home. For this to succeed though, a large selection of
content has to become available that exploits 3D in the best way possible.
In addition to the existing challenges found in creating 3D movies and television programmes, the stereography must
compensate for the dynamic and unpredictable environments found in games. Automatically, the software must map the
depth range of the scene into the display's comfort zone, while minimising depth compression.
This paper presents a range of techniques developed to solve this problem and the challenge of creating twice as many
images as the 2D version without excessively compromising the frame rate or image quality.
At the time of writing, over 80 stereoscopic PlayStation 3 games have been released and notable titles are used as
examples to illustrate how the techniques have been adapted for different game genres. Since the firmware's introduction
in 2010, the industry has matured with a large number of developers now producing increasingly sophisticated 3D
content. New technologies such as viewer head tracking and head-mounted displays should increase the appeal of 3D in
the home still further.
|