Recursive block splitting in feature‐driven decoder‐side depth estimation

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the use of encoder-derived features in decoder-side depth estimation. The scheme of multiview video encoding does not require the transmission of depth maps (which carry the geometry of a three-dimensional scene) as only a set of input views and their parameters are compressed and packed into the bitstream, with a set of features that could make it easier to estimate geometry in the decoder. The paper proposes novel recursive block splitting for the feature extraction process and evaluates different scenarios of feature-driven decoder-side depth estimation, performed by assessing their influence on the bitrate of metadata, quality of the reconstructed video, and time of depth estimation. As efficient encoding of multiview sequences became one of the main scopes of the video encoding community, the experimental results are based on the “geometry absent” profile from the incoming MPEG Immersive video standard. The results show that the quality of synthesized views using the proposed recursive block splitting outperforms that of the state-of-the-art approach.