Patent ID: 8743177

Claim:
A decoder for decoding an encoded stereoscopic digital image stream containing a merged image frame having a first and a second spatially compressed subimage areas corresponding to respective original left and right image frames of an original stereoscopic image stream corresponding to a left-eye view and a right-eye view of a scene respectively, the first and second spatially compressed subimage areas comprising pixels subsampled from said respective original left and right image frames according to different and complementary respective first and second subsampling coordinates, such that the pixels of the original left image at the second subsampling coordinates are absent from the first spatially compressed subimage area and the pixels of the original right image at the first subsampling coordinates are absent from the second spatially compressed subimage area, the decoder comprising at least one processor configured to perform: reading pixels from said first and second spatially compressed subimage areas of pixels of said digital image stream; reproducing a decoded left image frame by applying a pixel interpolation to the first spatially compressed subimage area in order to recover decoded left image pixels corresponding to the pixels of the original left image at the second subsampling coordinates; reproducing a decoded right image frame by applying a pixel interpolation to the second compressed subimage area in order to recover decoded right image pixels corresponding to the pixels of the original right image at the first subsampling coordinates; outputting a decoded stereoscopic image stream comprising said decoded left image frame and said decoded right image frame respectively corresponding substantially to said left-eye view and said right-eye view of said scene.