Depth map coding with elastic contours and 3D surface prediction

International audienceDepth maps are typically made of smooth regions separated by sharp edges. Following this rationale, this paper presents a novel coding scheme where the depth data is represented by a set of contours defining the various regions together with a compact representation of the values inside each region. A novel coding scheme based on elastic curves allows to compactly represent the contours exploiting also the temporal consistency in different frames. A 3D surface prediction algorithm is then exploited in order to obtain an accurate estimation of the depth field from the contours and a subsampled version of the data. Finally, an ad-hoc coding strategy for the low resolution data and the prediction residuals is presented. Experimental results prove how the proposed approach is able to obtain a very high coding efficiency outperforming the HEVC coder at medium-low bitrates