MPEG-I Depth Estimation Reference Software

For enabling virtual reality on natural content, Depth Image-Based Rendering (DIBR) techniques have been steadily developed over the past decade, but their quality highly depends on that of the depth estimation. This paper is an attempt to deliver good-quality Depth Estimation Reference Software (DERS) that is well-structured for further use in the worldwide MPEG standardization committee.The existing DERS has been refactored, debugged and extended to any number of input views for generating accurate depth maps. Their quality has been validated by synthesizing DIBR virtual views with the Reference View Synthesizer (RVS) and the Versatile View Synthesizer (VVS), using the available MPEG test sequences. Resulting images and runtimes are reported.