Time-multiplexed autostereoscopic camera system

A camera system has been developed to provide live 3D video input for a time-multiplexed autostereoscopic display. The system is capable of taking video input from up to sixteen sources and multiplexing these into a single video output stream with a pixel rate an order of magnitude faster than the individual input streams. Both monochrome and colour versions of the system have been built. Testing of the system with eight cameras and a Cambridge autostereo display has produced excellent live autostereoscopic video. The basic operation of the camera system is to digitise multiple input video streams, one for each view direction, and to multiplex these into a single autostereoscopic video stream. A simple circuit board (the camera board) can digitise, process and buffer the video input from a single video source. Several of these are connected together via a backplane to another circuit board (the multiplexer board) which contains all the circuitry necessary for generating the output video and synchronisation signals and for controlling the rest of the system. Alignment and synchronisation were two major challenges in the design of the system. Pixel-level control of camera alignment is provided by an image processing chip on each camera board, while synchronisation is provided by a number of carefully designed control mechanisms.