3-D image models and compression: synthetic hybrid or natural fit?

This paper highlights recent advances in image compression aided by 3-D geometry information. As two examples, we present a model-aided video coder for efficient compression of head-and-shoulder scenes and a geometry-aided coder for 4-D light fields for image-based rendering. Both examples illustrate that an explicit representation of 3-D geometry is advantageous if many views of the same 3-D object or scene have to be encoded. Waveform-coding and 3-D model-based coding can be combined in a rate-distortion framework, such that the generality of waveform coding and the efficiency of 3-D models are available where needed.