FTV (free-viewpoint television) is an innovative visual media that allows users to view a three-dimensional (3D) scene by freely changing their viewpoints. Thus, it enables realistic viewing and free navigation of 3D scenes. FTV is the ultimate 3DTV with infinite number of views and ranked at the top of visual media. FTV is not a conventional pixel-based system but a ray-based system. New types of ray capture, processing, and display technologies have been developed for FTV. These technologies were also used to realize an all-around ray-reproducing 3DTV. The international standardization of FTV has been promoted in MPEG. The first phase of FTV ismulti-view video coding and the second phase is 3D video. In this paper, the FTV system and its technologies are reviewed.
