Depth map compression via edge-based inpainting

This work presents a novel intra-frame coding scheme for depth maps that makes use of the characteristics of depth images: large smooth areas separated by sharp edges. The proposed method is block-based, thus can be easily integrated into H.264/AVC framework. By using the extracted edge information, each block is divided into several regions and each region is handled independently. Most regions are predicted via image inpainting based on the Laplace equation. The others that could not be inpainted are predicted by their mean values or a default value. Both the extracted edge information and the mean values are compressed under the rate-distortion (RD) optimization principle. Compared with H.264/AVC, the results show that the proposed scheme achieves both PSNR gain in depth maps and visual quality improvement in rendered views.