Generating Light Field From Stereo Images for AR Display With Matched Angular Sampling Structure and Minimal Retinal Error

Near-eye light field displays offer natural 3D visual experiences for AR/VR users by projecting light rays onto retina as if the light rays were emanated from a real object. Such displays normally take four-dimensional light field data as input. Given that sizeable existing 3D contents are in the form of stereo images, we propose a practical approach that generates light field data from such contents at minimal computational cost while maintaining a reasonable image quality. The perceptual quality of light field is ensured by making the baseline of light field subviews consistent with that of the micro-projectors of the light field display and by compensating for the optical artifact of the light field display through digital rectification. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach is verified through both quantitative and qualitative experiments. The results demonstrate that our light field converter works for real-world light field displays.