Multi-view three-dimensional television relies on view synthesis to reduce the number of views being transmitted. Arbitrary views can be synthesized by utilizing corresponding depth images with textures. The depth images obtained from stereo pairs or range cameras may contain erroneous values, which entail artifacts in a rendered view. Post-processing of the data may then be utilized to enhance the depth image with the purpose to reach a better quality of synthesized views. We propose a Partial Differential Equation (PDE)-based interpolation method for a reconstruction of the smooth areas in depth images, while preserving significant edges. We modeled the depth image by adjusting thresholds for edge detection and a uniform sparse sampling factor followed by the second order PDE interpolation. The objective results show that a depth image processed by the proposed method can achieve a better quality of synthesized views than the original depth image. Visual inspection confirmed the results.
KEYWORDS: Image compression, Image quality, Computer programming, Image processing, Video coding, Video, Video compression, Optical inspection, 3D video compression, Tellurium
Multi-view three-dimensional television requires many views, which may be synthesized from two-dimensional images with accompanying pixel-wise depth information. This depth image, which typically consists of smooth areas and sharp transitions at object borders, must be consistent with the acquired scene in order for synthesized views to be of good quality. We have previously proposed a depth image coding scheme that preserves significant edges and encodes smooth areas between these. An objective evaluation considering the structural similarity (SSIM) index for synthesized views demonstrated an advantage to the proposed scheme over the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) intra mode in certain cases. However, there were some discrepancies between the outcomes from the objective evaluation and from our visual inspection, which motivated this study of subjective tests. The test was conducted according to ITU-R BT.500-13 recommendation with Stimulus-comparison methods. The results from the subjective test showed that the proposed scheme performs slightly better than HEVC with statistical significance at majority of the tested bit rates for the given contents.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.