Real-time streaming of point-based 3D video

Free-viewpoint video is a promising technology for next-generation virtual and augmented reality applications. Our goal is to enhance collaborative VR applications with 3D video-conferencing features. In this paper, we propose a 3D video streaming technique which can be deployed in telepresence environments. The streaming characteristics of real-time 3D video sequences are investigated under various system and networking conditions. We introduce several encoding techniques and analyze their behavior with respect to resolution, bandwidth and inter-frame jitter. Our 3D video pipeline uses point samples as basic primitives and is fully integrated with a communication framework handling acknowledgment information for reliable network transmissions and application control data. The 3D video reconstruction process dynamically adapts to processing and networking bottlenecks. Our results show that a reliable transmission of our pixel-based differential prediction encoding leads to the best performance in terms of bandwidth, but is also quite sensitive to packet losses. A redundantly encoded stream achieves better results in presence of burst losses and seamlessly adapts to varying network throughput.