A new disocclusion filling approach in depth image based rendering for stereoscopic imaging

Depth image based rendering (DIBR) is one of the key techniques in converting the 2D videos into the stereoscopic 3D ones. Warping process is the major step in DIBR, which generates the virtual left and right views with a number of black disocclusion areas. The disocclusion filling process is the main task in DIBR. In this paper, an improved disocclusion filling approach is proposed, which is based on the texture and gradient analysis. Inpainting algorithm is applied first based on the background texture and depth information to repair the disocclusion areas, which can be effectively reduce the large sizes of the disocclusion areas. Then a new gradient direction template is proposed and applied to fill the left disocclusion areas. Experiments are conducted to compare with other disocclusion filling approaches. Our results are promising.