Patent ID: 8471893

Claim:
A method of generating a stereoscopic image bitstream, the method comprising: dividing abuse view image and an additional view image into blocks; generating a combined image by combining the blocks of the base view image and the blocks of the additional view image; recording the combined image in a payload area of the stereoscopic image bitstream; and recording, in a header area of the stereoscopic image bitstream, block combination pattern information about a pattern of arranging the blocks of the base view image and the blocks of the additional view image in the combined image, wherein the block combination pattern information indicates whether a pattern of the combined image is one of first, second and third patterns, and wherein the first pattern indicates that, among blocks of the combined image, each block of the base view image is adjacent in vertical and horizontal directic its to the blocks of the additional view image and each block of the additional view image is adjacent in vertical and horizontal directions to the blocks of the base view image, the second pattern indicates that, among the blocks of the combined image, blocks of the same view image are serially arranged in the vertical direction and each block of the same view image is adjacent in the horizontal direction to blocks of the other view image, and the third pattern indicates that, among the blocks of the combined image, the blocks of the same view image are serially arranged in the horizontal direction and each block of the same view image is adjacent in the vertical direction to the blocks of the other view image.