Patent ID: 8472786

Claim:
A stereoscopic image display control apparatus, comprising: a stereoscopic image data reading unit for reading stereoscopic image data representing a stereoscopic image that has been recorded on a recording medium; a cross-point information reading unit for reading cross-point information that has been recorded on the recording medium and that represents a cross point at which parallax of the stereoscopic image vanishes; a first blurring unit for blurring an image portion, which represents a subject at a position deeper than the cross point represented by the cross-point information read by said cross-point information reading unit, in the stereoscopic image represented by the stereoscopic image data read by said stereoscopic image data reading unit, in such a manner that the deeper the subject relative to the cross point, the greater the amount of blurring becomes; a display control unit for controlling a display device so as to display the stereoscopic image in which the image portion representing the subject at the deeper position has been blurred by said first blurring unit; a parallax determination unit for determining whether parallax of an image portion representing a subject at a position shallower than the cross point in the stereoscopic image is equal to or greater than a threshold value; and a cross-point control unit, responsive to a determination by said parallax determination unit that parallax of the image portion representing the subject at the position shallower than the cross point is equal to or greater than the threshold value, for controlling the stereoscopic image data so as to move the cross point to an image portion representing a subject shallower than the position of the cross point represented by cross-point information read by said cross-point information reading unit in the stereoscopic image, wherein, if said parallax is outside an allowed range, then the cross point is moved toward a short-distance side, and wherein, if said parallax is within an allowed range then the image portion representing a subject farther than the cross point at a time of recording is caused to blur in accordance with an amount of said parallax.