Quality improving techniques in DIBR for free-viewpoint video

This paper evaluates our 3D view interpolation rendering algorithm and proposes a few performance improving techniques. We aim at developing a rendering method for free-viewpoint 3DTV, based on depth image warping from surrounding cameras. The key feature of our approach is warping texture and depth in the first stage simultaneously and postpone blending the new view to a later stage, thereby avoiding errors in the virtual depth map. We evaluate the rendering quality in two ways. Firstly, it is measured by varying the distance between the two nearest cameras. We have obtained a PSNR gain of 3 dB and 4.5 dB for the 'Breakdancers' and 'Ballet' sequences, respectively, compared to the performance of a recent algorithm. A second series of tests in measuring the rendering quality were performed using compressed video or images from surrounding cameras. The overall quality of the system is dominated by rendering quality and not by coding.