Structure of three-dimensional image data, method of recording three-dimensional image data, and method of displaying and reproducing three-dimensional image data

Abstract

An apparatus displaying a three-dimensional image is provided with a parallax barrier having optical openings arranged at a horizontal pitch n times as large as that of pixels arranged on a display surface. The parallax barrier reproduces rays from every n pixels on the display surface in a horizontal direction and no vertical parallaxes is displayed in a viewing area. Image data for a three-dimensional image is processed so as to be recorded in an efficient saving format which minimizes the degradation of image quality while accomplishing a high compression rate. Image data from a set of pixels constituting parallel rays in the same parallax direction are accumulated to obtain more than n parallax component images. Parallax component images corresponding to n-th adjacent parallax directions are combined together and thus converted into n connected images having the same numbers of vertical and horizontal pixels.