Overview of free viewpoint television

We have been developing ray-based 3D information systems that consist of ray acquisition, ray processing, and ray display. Free viewpoint television (FTV) based on the ray-space method is a typical example. FTV will bring an epoch-making change in the history of television because it enables us to view a distant 3D world freely by changing our viewpoints as if we were there. We constructed a real-time FTV including the complete chain from capturing to display. A new algorithm was developed to generate free viewpoint images. In addition, a new user interface is presented for FTV to make full use of 3D information. FTV is not a pixel-based system but a ray-based system. We are creating ray-based image engineering through the development of FTV.