Virtual view synthesis using backward depth warping algorithm

The virtual view synthesis reference software offered by the MPEG standard committee adopts the forward warping technique in projecting the depth map from the reference view to the target (virtual) view location. Often, this warping process results in many artifacts, holes and cracks, due to quantization errors and occlusion. In this study, we propose a backward warping process to replace the forward warping process, and the artifacts (particularly the ones produced by quantization) are significantly reduced. The subjective quality of the synthesized virtual view images is thus much improved.