Performance Evaluation of the Codec Agnostic Approach in MPEG-I Video-Based Point Cloud Compression

In this study, we evaluated the codec agnostic approach of video-based point cloud compression (V-PCC) by applying several video codecs to V-PCC. The main concept of V-PCC is to use a video codec to compress the 2D patch images generated from a 3D point cloud. As a new immersive media standard of the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG), V-PCC is designed to support the codec agnostic approach, which can be employed to compress point cloud data using any video codec. The V-PCC reference software is currently designed using MPEG High-Efficiency Video Coding. We extended the evaluation of video codec applicability for PCC using well-known MPEG video coding standards, such as Advanced Video Coding, Essential Video Coding, and Versatile Video Coding. We identified several key strategies for applying a video codec to V-PCC to maximize the compression efficiency or computational complexity during the evaluation. Furthermore, the coding efficiency and time complexity of each codec are tested. The evaluation tests revealed that V-PCC supports the codec agnostic approach, and that the performance of the video codec is positively correlated with the V-PCC final coding efficiency. Reviewing these key strategies would help to develop V-PCC with different video codecs based on their profiles and levels.