Tilted layer-based modeling for enhanced light-field processing and image based rendering

Image based rendering is an attractive approach for novel view synthesis due to its low complexity requirements and potential for photorealistic results. However for successful rendering, geometric priors about the structure of the scene are necessary. In this paper we present a tilted layer model approximation of the plenoptic function which gives improved modeling of scenes where the objects are not fronto-parallel to the camera views while preserving occlusion ordering. The framework is extended to the case where camera positions are not constrained to a single plane but can lie on multiple planes. Results on the Middlebury dataset and simulated scenes show that better rendering results can be obtained compared with the state-of-the-art using a fronto-parallel layer model, or alternatively similar results can be obtained with a more compact layer representation of the scene.