To watch 360 videos on normal 2D displays, we need to project the selected part of the 360 image onto the 2D display plane. In this paper, we propose a fully-automated framework for generating content-aware 2D normal-view perspective videos from 360 videos. Especially, we focus on the projection step preserving important image contents and reducing image distortion. Basically, our projection method is based on Pannini projection model. At first, the salient contents such as linear structures and salient regions in the image are preserved by optimizing the single Panini projection model. Then, the multiple Panini projection models at salient regions are interpolated to suppress image distortion globally. Finally, the temporal consistency for image projection is enforced for producing temporally stable normal-view videos. Our proposed projection method does not require any user-interaction and is much faster than previous content-preserving methods. It can be applied to not only images but also videos taking the temporal consistency of projection into account. Experiments on various 360 videos show the superiority of the proposed projection method quantitatively and qualitatively.
The widely used rectilinear perspective projection cannot render realistic looking flat views with fields of view much wider than 70°. Yet 18th century artists known as 'view painters' depicted wider architectural scenes without visible perspective distortion.We have found no written records of how they did that, however, quantitative analysis of several works suggests that the key is a system for compressing horizontal angles while preserving certain straight lines important for the perspective illusion. We show that a simple double projection of the sphere to the plane, that we call the Pannini projection, can render images 150° or more wide with a natural appearance, reminiscent of vedutismo perspective. We give the mathematical formulas for realizing it numerically, in a general form that can be adjusted to suit a wide range of subject matter and field widths, and briefly compare it to other proposed alternatives to the rectilinear projection.