An Integrated Representation & Compression Scheme Based on Convolutional Autoencoders with 4D-DCT Perceptual Encoding for High Dynamic Range Light Fields

The emerging and existing light field displays are highly capable of realistic presentation of 3D scenes on auto-stereoscopic glasses-free platforms. However, the large size of light field data presents a significant drawback for 3D displays and streaming purposes. When a light field has a high dynamic range (HDR), its size increases drastically. This paper proposes a novel compression algorithm specifically designed for high dynamic range light fields that achieves perceptually lossless compression. The algorithm leverages inter-view and intra-view correlations within the HDR light field by treating it as a four-dimensional volume. This compression technique is based on the 4D-DCT Uniform Colour Space (4DDCT-UCS) algorithm. Further encoding of 4DDCT-UCS processed images using High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) eliminates intra-frame, inter-frame, and intrinsic redundancies in HDR light field data. Our comparison with state-of-the-art coders like JPEG-XL and existing HDR video coding algorithms demonstrates the superior compression performance of the proposed scheme for real-world light fields.