Rate-Distortion Optimized Mode Switching for Error-Resilient Multi-View Video Plus Depth Based 3-D Video Coding

In this paper, a rate-distortion optimized coding mode switching scheme is proposed to improve error resilience for multi-view video plus depth (MVD) based 3-D video transmission over lossy networks. First, we derive a new end-to-end distortion model for MVD-based 3-D video transmission. As compared with the previous MVD-based video distortion models in which distortion is measured by only investigating the expected texture video errors and depth errors on the synthesized virtual view, the proposed scheme characterizes both the end-to-end distortions in the rendered virtual view and the coded texture video due to packet losses. Moreover, inter-view error propagation for the texture video and depth map is also considered. Based on the proposed distortion model, an optimal mode decision algorithm is then performed in the texture video and depth map coding process. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides significant improvements in terms of both objective and subjective evaluations.