An overview of MPEG-4 object-based encoding algorithms

Describes several object-based encoding issues and provides solutions based on the MPEG-4 coding standard. Specifically, we first consider the general problem of object-based rate control and the allocation of bits among each object. Going a step further, we then discuss the issues related to the allocation of bits between shape and texture, and propose a method to model the rate distortion characteristics of the shape. Finally, we describe some preliminary work that we have been doing towards optimizing the tradeoff in spatial and temporal quality. For object-based coding, it is believed that significant coding gains can be achieved.