Derived disparity vector based NBDV for 3D-AVC

In the 3D video extension of H.264/AVC, namely 3D-AVC, Neighboring Based Disparity Vector (NBDV) derivation has been proposed to support multiview/stereo compatibility, therefore texture views can be decoded independently to depth views. NBDV generates a disparity vector for the current macroblock (MB) using the motion information of neighboring blocks, especially those coded with motion vectors pointing to inter-view reference pictures. In 3D-AVC, NBDV has been utilized to access minimum number of spatial and temporal neighboring blocks, therefore there is a high probability that NBDV does not derive an efficient disparity vector. This paper introduces a derived disparity vector scheme, wherein only one disparity vector derived from NBDV is maintained for the whole slice and it is used as the disparity vector of the current MB if NBDV does not derive one from neighboring blocks. Simulation results show that the proposed method provides 3.6% bit rate reduction for multiview coding.