8,675 research outputs found
Loss-resilient Coding of Texture and Depth for Free-viewpoint Video Conferencing
Free-viewpoint video conferencing allows a participant to observe the remote
3D scene from any freely chosen viewpoint. An intermediate virtual viewpoint
image is commonly synthesized using two pairs of transmitted texture and depth
maps from two neighboring captured viewpoints via depth-image-based rendering
(DIBR). To maintain high quality of synthesized images, it is imperative to
contain the adverse effects of network packet losses that may arise during
texture and depth video transmission. Towards this end, we develop an
integrated approach that exploits the representation redundancy inherent in the
multiple streamed videos a voxel in the 3D scene visible to two captured views
is sampled and coded twice in the two views. In particular, at the receiver we
first develop an error concealment strategy that adaptively blends
corresponding pixels in the two captured views during DIBR, so that pixels from
the more reliable transmitted view are weighted more heavily. We then couple it
with a sender-side optimization of reference picture selection (RPS) during
real-time video coding, so that blocks containing samples of voxels that are
visible in both views are more error-resiliently coded in one view only, given
adaptive blending will erase errors in the other view. Further, synthesized
view distortion sensitivities to texture versus depth errors are analyzed, so
that relative importance of texture and depth code blocks can be computed for
system-wide RPS optimization. Experimental results show that the proposed
scheme can outperform the use of a traditional feedback channel by up to 0.82
dB on average at 8% packet loss rate, and by as much as 3 dB for particular
frames
Depth map compression via 3D region-based representation
In 3D video, view synthesis is used to create new virtual views between
encoded camera views. Errors in the coding of the depth maps introduce
geometry inconsistencies in synthesized views. In this paper, a new 3D plane
representation of the scene is presented which improves the performance of
current standard video codecs in the view synthesis domain. Two image segmentation
algorithms are proposed for generating a color and depth segmentation.
Using both partitions, depth maps are segmented into regions without
sharp discontinuities without having to explicitly signal all depth edges. The
resulting regions are represented using a planar model in the 3D world scene.
This 3D representation allows an efficient encoding while preserving the 3D
characteristics of the scene. The 3D planes open up the possibility to code
multiview images with a unique representation.Postprint (author's final draft
Navigation domain representation for interactive multiview imaging
Enabling users to interactively navigate through different viewpoints of a
static scene is a new interesting functionality in 3D streaming systems. While
it opens exciting perspectives towards rich multimedia applications, it
requires the design of novel representations and coding techniques in order to
solve the new challenges imposed by interactive navigation. Interactivity
clearly brings new design constraints: the encoder is unaware of the exact
decoding process, while the decoder has to reconstruct information from
incomplete subsets of data since the server can generally not transmit images
for all possible viewpoints due to resource constrains. In this paper, we
propose a novel multiview data representation that permits to satisfy bandwidth
and storage constraints in an interactive multiview streaming system. In
particular, we partition the multiview navigation domain into segments, each of
which is described by a reference image and some auxiliary information. The
auxiliary information enables the client to recreate any viewpoint in the
navigation segment via view synthesis. The decoder is then able to navigate
freely in the segment without further data request to the server; it requests
additional data only when it moves to a different segment. We discuss the
benefits of this novel representation in interactive navigation systems and
further propose a method to optimize the partitioning of the navigation domain
into independent segments, under bandwidth and storage constraints.
Experimental results confirm the potential of the proposed representation;
namely, our system leads to similar compression performance as classical
inter-view coding, while it provides the high level of flexibility that is
required for interactive streaming. Hence, our new framework represents a
promising solution for 3D data representation in novel interactive multimedia
services
High-Level Synthesis Based VLSI Architectures for Video Coding
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is state-of-the-art video coding standard. Emerging applications like free-viewpoint video, 360degree video, augmented reality, 3D movies etc. require standardized extensions of HEVC. The standardized extensions of HEVC include HEVC Scalable Video Coding (SHVC), HEVC Multiview Video Coding (MV-HEVC), MV-HEVC+ Depth (3D-HEVC) and HEVC Screen Content Coding. 3D-HEVC is used for applications like view synthesis generation, free-viewpoint video. Coding and transmission of depth maps in 3D-HEVC is used for the virtual view synthesis by the algorithms like Depth Image Based Rendering (DIBR). As first step, we performed the profiling of the 3D-HEVC standard. Computational intensive parts of the standard are identified for the efficient hardware implementation. One of the computational intensive part of the 3D-HEVC, HEVC and H.264/AVC is the Interpolation Filtering used for Fractional Motion Estimation (FME). The hardware implementation of the interpolation filtering is carried out using High-Level Synthesis (HLS) tools. Xilinx Vivado Design Suite is used for the HLS implementation of the interpolation filters of HEVC and H.264/AVC. The complexity of the digital systems is greatly increased. High-Level Synthesis is the methodology which offers great benefits such as late architectural or functional changes without time consuming in rewriting of RTL-code, algorithms can be tested and evaluated early in the design cycle and development of accurate models against which the final hardware can be verified
Steered mixture-of-experts for light field images and video : representation and coding
Research in light field (LF) processing has heavily increased over the last decade. This is largely driven by the desire to achieve the same level of immersion and navigational freedom for camera-captured scenes as it is currently available for CGI content. Standardization organizations such as MPEG and JPEG continue to follow conventional coding paradigms in which viewpoints are discretely represented on 2-D regular grids. These grids are then further decorrelated through hybrid DPCM/transform techniques. However, these 2-D regular grids are less suited for high-dimensional data, such as LFs. We propose a novel coding framework for higher-dimensional image modalities, called Steered Mixture-of-Experts (SMoE). Coherent areas in the higher-dimensional space are represented by single higher-dimensional entities, called kernels. These kernels hold spatially localized information about light rays at any angle arriving at a certain region. The global model consists thus of a set of kernels which define a continuous approximation of the underlying plenoptic function. We introduce the theory of SMoE and illustrate its application for 2-D images, 4-D LF images, and 5-D LF video. We also propose an efficient coding strategy to convert the model parameters into a bitstream. Even without provisions for high-frequency information, the proposed method performs comparable to the state of the art for low-to-mid range bitrates with respect to subjective visual quality of 4-D LF images. In case of 5-D LF video, we observe superior decorrelation and coding performance with coding gains of a factor of 4x in bitrate for the same quality. At least equally important is the fact that our method inherently has desired functionality for LF rendering which is lacking in other state-of-the-art techniques: (1) full zero-delay random access, (2) light-weight pixel-parallel view reconstruction, and (3) intrinsic view interpolation and super-resolution
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