Rate-distortion performance of multi-view image coding with subsampling of viewpoints

In this paper, we consider the rate-distortion performance of a multi- view image set with subsampling of the viewpoints. As a basic analysis, we compare two scenarios: (i) all images would be coded and transmitted in even quality, and (ii) a half of the images would be discarded by subsampling at the sender side, and the remaining half would be coded and transmitted. In the second scenario, the discarded images would be reconstructed at the receiver side using some view interpolation technology. We first introduce a theoretical model describing the rate-distortion performance of the scenarios above. Then, we present numerical simulations and experiments, showing that which scenario yields better performance depends on the bitrate, the properties of the image set, and the accuracy of the view interpolation.