The capture, transmission, and display of
3D content has gained a lot of attention in the last few
years. 3D multimedia content is no longer con fined to
cinema theatres but is being transmitted using stereoscopic
video over satellite, shared on Blu-RayTMdisks,
or sent over Internet technologies. Stereoscopic displays
are needed at the receiving end and the viewer needs to
wear special glasses to present the two versions of the
video to the human vision system that then generates
the 3D illusion. To be more e ffective and improve the
immersive experience, more views are acquired from a
larger number of cameras and presented on di fferent displays,
such as autostereoscopic and light field displays.
These multiple views, combined with depth data, also
allow enhanced user experiences and new forms of interaction
with the 3D content from virtual viewpoints.
This type of audiovisual information is represented by a
huge amount of data that needs to be compressed and
transmitted over bandwidth-limited channels. Part of
the COST Action IC1105 \3D Content Creation, Coding
and Transmission over Future Media Networks" (3DConTourNet)
focuses on this research challenge.peer-reviewe