Epipolar plane image based rendering for 3D video coding

In current 3D video coding solutions, such as the 3D-HEVC standard, depth data is instrumental to have a continuum of views synthesized at the decoder based on a limited set of coded views. In order view synthesis may be performed at the decoder, depth data is currently directly acquired or estimated at the encoder based on very few neighboring views and transmitted to the decoder after appropriate compression. At the decoder, further views then those decoded are synthesized using again very few neighboring decoded views, thus using a local synthesis approach. A promising alternative synthesis approach may consider not a few but rather all the views available at the decoder, thus offering a scene global approach to synthesis. One way to implement this approach involves cutting the views cube along the viewpoint direction, creating the so-called epipolar plane images (EPI) which provide a rather compact representation of the scene. In this context, this paper proposes an EPI based view rendering framework for 3D video coding solution and identifies the major benefits of such framework, notably in comparison with the traditional local synthesis approach.