Layered Depth Video Research Articles

Display-Independent 3D-TV Production and Delivery Using the Layered Depth Video Format

This paper discusses an approach to 3D-Television that is based on the Layered Depth Video (LDV) format. The LDV format contains explicit depth and occlusion information, allowing for the generation of novel viewpoints for stereoscopic and auto-stereoscopic multi-view displays. Thus, the format is effectively invariant to the display type and also allows the depth impression to be easily changed to best meet viewers' preferences for visual comfort. The major aspects of a content delivery chain based on the LDV format are discussed in this paper. The requirements placed on data acquisition are introduced, and a multi-camera system, which is well suited for LDV compliant data capture, is presented. Also discussed is the conversion of different input data streams, like standard stereo videos, multi-view data supplemented by depth data, and videos from wide baseline setups, to the LDV format. Moreover, the advantages of the LDV format in editing and mixing are examined. The paper also presents a transmission system based on currently available coding and transmission standards. Optimization of the bandwidth via different approaches to the compression of the LDV signal is analyzed, and the results of conducted experiments in this field are discussed. Finally, the aspects of perceptual human factors for the proper evaluation of 3D-TV services and the implemented LDV system are examined. This contribution reflects the efforts of the EU-funded project 3D4YOU to unify all aspects of 3D-TV production.

A Novel Inpainting-Based Layered Depth Video for 3DTV

Layered Depth Video (LDV) is recognized as a promising 3D video data representation for supporting advanced 3D video services required in Multiview Video (MVV) systems such as Three-Dimensional Television (3DTV). This representation consists of one full or central view in the form of a video-plus-depth sequence as the main layer, and additional enhancement layers including residual texture and depth data that represent side views. LDV is thus both a derivative of and an alternative to Multiview Video-plus-Depth (MVD) representation by only transmit one full view with associated residual data over the channel. There is a risk, however, of residual data information rapidly increasing as the distance between the center view and side views increases. This occurs when parts of the central view are not visible in the side views, leaving blank spots called disocclusions. These disocclusions may grow larger, which increases the amount of residual data that needs to be sent with the main layer. In this paper, we address the residual layer generation problem. We propose an inpainting-based LDV generation method to reduce the amount of residual data to send by retrieving the missing pixels from the main layer. In the proposed method, we take into account the depth information by distinguishing between foreground and background parts of the scene, at low complexity, during the texture and structure propagation stage of the inpainting process. Experimental results demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Stereoscopic 3D Sports Content without Stereo Rigs

This contribution describes an alternative approach to generating stereoscopic content of sports scenes from regular broadcast cameras without the need for special stereo rigs. This is achieved by using 3D reconstruction previously developed for applications in postmatch analysis. The reconstruction method requires at least four or five cameras and computes the 3D information automatically. Two different target formats for the delivery of stereoscopic 3D TV are discussed: the display-independent layered depth video format and conventional binocular stereo. The results viewed on two different displays demonstrate the potential of the method as an alternative production method for stereoscopic 3D content.

An overview of 3D video representation and coding

As the next generation of television, three-dimensional television (3DTV) is enkindling various new applications. Since the representation and coding of three-dimensional video has direct effect on successive transmission, synthesis and display, it becomes crucially important and receives a wide publicity. This paper gives an overview of existing 3D video representation, relevantly state-of-the-art coding standards and various coding approaches consisting of conventional stereo video, multi-view video, video plus depth, multi-view video plus depth and layered depth video.