Fast algorithm for prediction unit and mode decisions of intra depth coding in 3D-HEVC

As the state-of-the-art video coding standard for 3D video, the 3D video extension of High Efficiency Video Coding (3D-HEVC) compresses the multi-view texture videos plus depth maps. The intra depth coding consumes huge computational complexity due to the added depth modeling modes (DMMs) and its new complex processing flow. This paper proposes a fast algorithm to reduce the complexity for prediction unit (PU) and mode decisions for intra depth coding. Firstly, the early PU splitting and pruning methods are proposed to fast decide the PU size, based on the intra depth coding flow. Secondly, by analyzing the relationship between DMMs and Planar mode, a fast algorithm is used to skip the mode decision under the certain condition. Experimental results show our proposed methods together reduce 56.32% and 50.12% computational complexity for depth map and total video coding, while the performance loss is only 1.42% BD-rate increasing.