Stereoscopic image converting apparatus, stereoscopic image output apparatus, and stereoscopic image converting method

A stereoscopic image output apparatus comprising:

• an encoding module configured to encode a video signal;
• a stereoscopic image converting apparatus comprising:
• a depth estimating module configured to generate a first depth map comprising depth values of pixels of an input video, wherein the depth values are estimated based on an amount of a characteristic of the input video, and wherein the depth values are represented by pixel shading;
• a right and left end depth corrector configured to generate a second depth map by correcting the depth values of pixels within a distance from each of right and left ends of the first depth map to become closer to a depth value corresponding to a screen surface of a display that does not protrude forward or recede rearward in stereoscopic viewing as the pixels within the distance are positioned closer to the each of the right and left ends of the first depth map;
• and
• a parallax image generator configured to generate a multi-parallax image by shifting pixels of the input video by an amount horizontally based on the depth values of the second depth map
• wherein the stereoscopic image converting apparatus is configured to convert an input video signal encoded by the encoding module into a video signal for stereoscopic display;
• and
• a video processor configured to convert the converted video signal for stereoscopic display into a video signal in a format for display on a display, and to output the video signal.

A stereoscopic image converting method comprising:

• generating a first depth map comprising depth values of pixels of an input video, wherein the depth values are estimated based on an amount of a characteristic of the input video, and wherein the depth values are represented by pixel shading;
• generating a second depth map by correcting the depth values of pixels within a first distance from each of right and left ends of the depth map to become closer to a depth value corresponding to a screen surface of a display that does not protrude forward or recede rearward in stereoscopic viewing as the pixels within the first distance are positioned closer to the each of the right and left ends of the depth map;
• and
• generating a multi-parallax image by shifting pixels of the input video by an amount horizontally based on the depth values of the second depth map.