Stitched Wide Field of View Light Field Image Quality Assessment: Benchmark Database and Objective Metric

Due to the limitation of commercial light field camera hardware devices, the imaging field of view is quite narrow. Numerous Light Field Image (LFI) stitching algorithms have been developed to expand the field of view. However, it is highly challenging to compare the performance of LFI stitching algorithms in a fair manner. Currently, due to the absence of a comprehensive benchmark database for subjective rating and a reliable objective quality metric, it is fairly difficult to comprehensively and accurately compare the actual performance of existing LFI stitching algorithms. In this study, we dedicate our efforts to the development of quality metrics for stitched Wide field of view LFI (WLFI) from subjective and objective assessment aspects. Specifically, we build the first stitched WLFI database, which provides the stitched WLFIs generated by eight representative LFI stitching algorithms, along with their corresponding subjective rating scores. Secondly, an effective blind stitched WLFI quality metric is developed to accurately assess the visual quality degradation. Extensive experiments conducted over our established WLFI database demonstrate that the proposed metric achieves higher consistency with subjective ratings than the competing quality metrics.