[Discovery]

THE GIST

• To date, 3-D content has had to go through a post-production process where it was specifically rendered for viewing without glasses.
• New technology allows live action to be captured and transmitted in glasses-free 3D in real time.
• Sporting events and live cultural events will likely be the most popular in 3D.

…  Zilly’s team already developed a stereoscopic analyzer, dubbed STAN, that corrects standard 3-D images in real time to make live broadcasts possible. Their new system is an extension of STAN that can generate up to 25 views of the same scene from slightly different viewpoints, which is needed for effective glasses-free 3D. That virtual view rendering is fairly fast in the lab, but not quite at the speed needed for live broadcasting, Zilly said.

The Fraunhofer project team recently presented its autostereoscopic technology at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam. Their current version works offline, but Zilly hopes to present a real-time version of the broadcast technology at next year’s convention. …

Read the full story here: http://news.discovery.com/tech/threed-tv-without-glasses-110923.html