A New Comprehensive Framework for Multi-Exposure Stereo Coding Utilizing Low Rank Tucker-ALS and 3D-HEVC Techniques

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel tensor low-rank approximation framework combined with 3D-HEVC for efficient compression of multi-exposure stereo images, enabling HDR 3D reconstruction with improved quality and flexibility.

Contribution

It proposes a new tensor low-rank Tucker-ALS scheme integrated with 3D-HEVC for efficient HDR stereo image coding, enhancing compression and reconstruction quality.

Findings

Outperforms JPEG-XT and 3D-HEVC in natural scene compression.

Enables flexible bitrate adjustment via tensor rank and quantization.

Improves HDR 3D realism and depth cues at lower bitrates.

Abstract

Display technology must offer high dynamic range (HDR) contrast-based depth induction and 3D personalization simultaneously. Efficient algorithms to compress HDR stereo data is critical. Direct capturing of HDR content is complicated due to the high expense and scarcity of HDR cameras. The HDR 3D images could be generated in low-cost by fusing low-dynamic-range (LDR) images acquired using a stereo camera with various exposure settings. In this paper, an efficient scheme for coding multi-exposure stereo images is proposed based on a tensor low-rank approximation scheme. The multi-exposure fusion can be realized to generate HDR stereo output at the decoder for increased realism and exaggerated binocular 3D depth cues. For exploiting spatial redundancy in LDR stereo images, the stack of multi-exposure stereo images is decomposed into a set of projection matrices and a core tensor following an alternating least squares Tucker decomposition model. The compact, low-rank representation of the scene, thus, generated is further processed by 3D extension of High Efficiency Video Coding standard. The encoding with 3D-HEVC enhance the proposed scheme efficiency by exploiting intra-frame, inter-view and the inter-component redundancies in low-rank approximated representation. We consider constant luminance property of IPT and Y'CbCr color space to precisely approximate intensity prediction and perceptually minimize the encoding distortion. Besides, the proposed scheme gives flexibility to adjust the bitrate of tensor latent components by changing the rank of core tensor and its quantization. Extensive experiments on natural scenes demonstrate that the proposed scheme outperforms state-of-the-art JPEG-XT and 3D-HEVC range coding standards.