Multi-View Video Coding using View Interpolation and Reference Picture Selection

We propose a new multi-view video coding method using adaptive selection of motion/disparity compensation based on H.264/AVC. One of the key points of the proposed method is the use of view interpolation as a tool for disparity compensation by assigning reference picture indices to interpolated images. Experimental results show that significant gains can be obtained compared to the conventional approach that was often used

1. Introduction

A multi-view video is a group of videos captured by multiple cameras of the same scene. Free Viewpoint Television (FTV) and 3DTV (display technologies that enable depth perception for the viewer) are known to be the main applications for multi-view video, which have gained a large amount of interest in the industry as new types of visual entertainment applications. For this reason, capturing, processing, and coding multi-view video has become a highly active reaserch topic. Furthermore, after the establishment of an adhoc group called “3DAV” in MPEG [1], MPEG has recently determined to make a standard on multi-view video coding.