Multi-view image coding using 3-D voxel models

We propose a multi-view image coding system in 3-D space based on an improved volumetric 3-D reconstruction. Unlike existing multi-view image coding schemes, in which the 3-D scene information is represented by a mesh model as well as the texture data, we use a 3-D voxel model to represent the 3-D scene information of the images to be encoded. Furthermore, we propose important, yet simple, improvements to current 3-D voxel models; these improvements lead to significant coding gain within our 3-D voxel model based compression system. This system provides an elegant framework for employing powerful and mature coding techniques. In particular, we employ the H.264 and 3-D SPIHT coding methods for compressing the proposed 3-D voxel models. Our simulation results clearly illustrate the efficiency and potential of the proposed 3-D voxel model based system.