3D video compression

In this chapter, compression methods for 3D video (3DV) are presented. This includes data formats, video and depth compression, evaluation methods, and analysis tools. First, the fundamental principles of video coding for classical 2D video content are reviewed, including signal prediction, quantization, transformation, and entropy coding. These methods are extended toward multi-view video coding (MVC), where inter-view prediction is added to the 2D video coding methods to gain higher coding efficiency. Next, 3DV coding principles are introduced, which are different from previous coding methods. In 3DV, a generic input format is used for coding and a dense number of output views are generated for different types of autostereoscopic displays. This influences the format selection, encoder optimization, evaluation methods, and requires new modules, like the decoder-side view generation, as discussed in this chapter. Finally, different 3DV formats are compared and discussed for their applicability for 3DV systems