Cross-Block Difference Guided Fast CU Partition for VVC Intra Coding

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel fast CU partition algorithm for VVC intra coding that leverages cross-block difference to significantly reduce encoding time with minimal impact on compression efficiency.

Contribution

It presents a new cross-block difference guided method for faster CU partitioning in VVC intra coding, improving speed without sacrificing quality.

Findings

41.64% average encoding time reduction

0.97% average BD-rate increase

Effective guidance for skipping unnecessary partitions

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a new fast CU partition algorithm for VVC intra coding based on cross-block difference. This difference is measured by the gradient and the content of sub-blocks obtained from partition and is employed to guide the skipping of unnecessary horizontal and vertical partition modes. With this guidance, a fast determination of block partitions is accordingly achieved. Compared with VVC, our proposed method can save 41.64% (on average) encoding time with only 0.97% (on average) increase of BD-rate.