Multi-View Video Plus Depth Representation and Coding

• Published in: 2007 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing Vol. 1; pp. I - 201 - I - 204
• Main Authors: Merkle, P., Smolic, A., Muller, K., Wiegand, T.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.09.2007
• Subjects: 3DTV; free viewpoint video; Image analysis; Image coding; Image color analysis; Image quality; Multi-view video coding; point-based rendering; PSNR; Rendering (computer graphics); Three dimensional TV; Video coding; Video compression; video plus depth format; Video sequences
• ISBN: 9781424414369; 1424414369
• ISSN: 1522-4880
• DOI: 10.1109/ICIP.2007.4378926

A study on the video plus depth representation for multi-view video sequences is presented. Such a 3D representation enables functionalities like 3D television and free viewpoint video. Compression is based on algorithms for multi-view video coding, which exploit statistical dependencies from both temporal and inter-view reference pictures for prediction of both color and depth data. Coding efficiency of prediction structures with and without inter-view reference pictures is analyzed for multi-view video plus depth data, reporting gains in luma PSNR of up to 0.5 dB for depth and 0.3 dB for color. The main benefit from using a multi-view video plus depth representation is that intermediate views can be easily rendered. Therefore the impact on image quality of rendered arbitrary intermediate views is investigated and analyzed in a second part, comparing compressed multi-view video plus depth data at different bit rates with the uncompressed original.