FTV format using global view and depth map

We propose a novel 3D space representation for multi-view video, using epipolar plane depth images (EPDI). Multi-view video plus depth (MVD) is used as common data format for FTV (Free-viewpoint TV), which enables synthesizing virtual view images. Due to the large amount of data and complexity of the multi-view video coding (MVC), compression of MVD is a challenging issue. We address this problem and propose a new representation that is constructed from MVD using ray-space. MVD is converted into image and depth ray-spaces. The proposed representation is obtained by converting each of ray-spaces into a global depth map and a global view using EPDI. Experiments demonstrate the analysis of this representation.