A novel approach for efficient multi-view depth map coding

Multi-view video plus depth (MVD) format, which consists of texture and depth images, has been recently presented as video representation to support depth perception of scenes and efficient view generation at the arbitrary positions. In particular, a depth image has been one of the significantly important issues for successful services of highly advanced multi-media video applications, such as three-dimensional television (3DTV) and free-viewpoint television (FTV). In this paper, we present a novel approach for efficient multiview depth map coding. We assume that a texture image in the MVD format is first encoded and then the corresponding depth image is encoded. According to an analysis of interview correlation between the previously encoded texture images, the proposed method skips some blocks of the depth image without encoding. The skipped blocks in the depth map are predicted from the neighboring depth images at the same time instant. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method reduces the coding bitrate of up to 74.8% and improves PSNR of up to 3.51dB in P and B views.