Fractal coding of a multi-view 3-D image

This paper deals with two important problems for the 3-D image communication: (i) how to synthesize intermediate-viewing-angle images of a multi-view 3-D image, and (ii) how to compress the tremendous amount of data required for the stereoscopic visual effect. In order to synthesize a 3-D image having a larger number of views from a 3-D image having fewer views, we propose a new concept of view interpolation technique. The resolution of the viewpoint-axis of a multi-view 3-D image is enhanced for the purpose of increasing the number of viewpoints. We present a new data compression method which is scalable to any resolution, i.e. scalable to any number of views. For this purpose, the fractal coding scheme with the feature of resolution independence is examined, and is shown to be applicable to 3-D image communication