Investigating experienced quality factors in synthesized multi-view stereo images

In this study, we investigated the quality factors in view synthesis that might lead to the visual discomfort and degradation of the overall viewing quality of the synthesized multi-view stereo or free viewpoint images. In particular, we focused on the investigation of the left and right (LR) image mismatch that might be one of the most important quality factors in the stereoscopic viewing. In order to measure how severely this factor influences the visual comfort and overall quality, we conducted a series of subjective assessment experiments on the visual comfort and viewing preference. In the subjective experiments, we compared the stereo view synthesis results of three different hole filling methods, because incorrectly filled holes could cause severe mismatches between the left- and right-view images. The subjective results revealed that the LR image mismatch could induce more visual discomfort and lower overall quality of stereoscopic images. Also, the results indicated that the visual comfort and overall quality were able to be improved by considering the inter-view consistency in multi-view stereo generation.