Optimization of Occlusion-Inducing Depth Pixels in 3-D Video Coding

TL;DR

This paper introduces an efficient depth map coding scheme for occlusion-inducing pixels in 3D video, reducing geometry distortion and improving coding efficiency without changing occlusion order.

Contribution

It formulates a novel optimization problem and proposes a dynamic programming solution to enhance depth coding for occlusion pixels in 3D video.

Findings

Improved coding efficiency over existing algorithms.

Reduced geometry distortion in synthesized views.

Effective optimization of depth distortions within bit rate constraints.

Abstract

The optimization of occlusion-inducing depth pixels in depth map coding has received little attention in the literature, since their associated texture pixels are occluded in the synthesized view and their effect on the synthesized view is considered negligible. However, the occlusion-inducing depth pixels still need to consume the bits to be transmitted, and will induce geometry distortion that inherently exists in the synthesized view. In this paper, we propose an efficient depth map coding scheme specifically for the occlusion-inducing depth pixels by using allowable depth distortions. Firstly, we formulate a problem of minimizing the overall geometry distortion in the occlusion subject to the bit rate constraint, for which the depth distortion is properly adjusted within the set of allowable depth distortions that introduce the same disparity error as the initial depth distortion. Then, we propose a dynamic programming solution to find the optimal depth distortion vector for the occlusion. The proposed algorithm can improve the coding efficiency without alteration of the occlusion order. Simulation results confirm the performance improvement compared to other existing algorithms.