On object-based compression for a class of dynamic image-based representations

An object-based compression scheme for a class of dynamic image-based representations called "plenoptic videos" (PVs) is studied in this paper. PVs are simplified dynamic light fields in which the videos are taken at regularly spaced locations along a line segment instead of a 2-D plane. To improve the rendering quality in scenes with large depth variations and support the functionalities at the object level for rendering, an object-based compression scheme is employed for the coding of PVs. Besides texture and shape information, the compression of geometry information in the form of depth maps is also supported. The proposed compression scheme exploits both the temporal and spatial redundancy among video object streams in the PV to achieve higher compression efficiency. Experimental results show that considerable improvements in coding performance are obtained for both synthetic and real scenes. Moreover, object-based functionalities such as rendering individual image-based objects are also illustrated.