Depth-enhanced compression for 3D video

The original idea of the paper is to exploit depth maps in order to increase compression efficiency for multiview video. Depth information is used to establish a 3D mapping between each pixel in an encoded frame and its counterpart in the reference view. With this mapping motion vectors and reference frame indices can be obtained independently for each pixel in a coded picture by a simple derivation of the motion information assigned to the corresponding pixel in the reference view. The goal of the paper is to explore a practical way to use this idea in multiview video coding. This goal has been achieved by experimental testing of various sets of direct and skip modes with and without inter-frame motion prediction. It was shown that either "all modes" have to be used or "all but not classic direct mode" should be used. The respective experimental results have been provided in the paper.