Toward an objective stereo-video quality metric: Depth perception of textured areas

Objective stereo quality metrics are required by scientific and manufacturing communities to properly capture, process, encode and transmit stereo video. Over recent years several stereo-video quality metrics have been proposed. In this paper we address the problem of constructing an objective method for detecting image areas sensitive to stereo distortions. We describe a subjective testing methodology whose goal is to determine how image texture affects human depth perception. We then construct our pixelwise subjective method of scoring the sensitivity of image areas to depth-map distortions. Finally, we perform subjective validation of the results. Possible applications of the proposed method include incorporating the resulting predictions into existing stereo quality metrics and encoding algorithms to achieve better correlation with subjective measurements.