Region-of-interest 3D video coding based on depth images

Three dimensional (3D) TV is becoming a mature technology due to the progress within areas such as display and network technology among others. However, 3D video demands a higher bandwidth in order to transmit the information needed to render or directly display several different views at the receiver. The 2D plus depth representation requires less bit rate than most 3D video representations, although the necessary views have to be rendered at the receiver. In this paper we propose to combine the 2D plus depth representation with region-of-interest (ROI) video coding to ensure a higher quality at parts of the sequence that are of interest to the viewer. These include objects close to the viewer as well as faces. This allows either the bit rate to be reduced by 12-28 % or the quality within the ROI to be increased by 0.57 - 1.5 dB, when a fixed bit rate is applied.