Region merging and coding parameter reuse via merging

• US 10,719,850 B2
• Filed: 09/23/2019
• Issued: 07/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC (General Electric Company)
• Original Assignee: GE Video Compression, LLC (General Electric Company)
• Inventors: Helle, Philipp, Oudin, Simon, Winken, Martin, Marpe, Detlev, Wiegand, Thomas
• Primary Examiner(s): Retallick, Kaitlin A
• Application Number:
  US16/578,542
• Publication Number:
  US 20200019986A1
• Time in Patent Office: 302 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/00 Information retrieval; Database structures therefor; File system structures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/105 Selection of the reference unit for prediction within a chosen coding or prediction mode, e.g. adaptive choice of position and number of pixels used for prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/119 Adaptive subdivision aspects, e.g. subdivision of a picture into rectangular or non-rectangular coding blocks
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/139 Analysis of motion vectors, e.g. their magnitude, direction, variance or reliability
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/14 Coding unit complexity, e.g. amount of activity or edge presence estimation H04N19/146 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/147 according to rate distortion criteria rate-distortion as a criterion for motion estimation H04N19/567
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/176 the region being a block, e.g. a macroblock
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/196 being specially adapted for the computation of encoding parameters, e.g. by averaging previously computed encoding parameters processing of motion vectors H04N19/513
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/197 including determination of the initial value of an encoding parameter H04N19/56 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/46 Embedding additional information in the video signal during the compression process H04N19/517, H04N19/68, H04N19/70 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/463 by compressing encoding parameters before transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/52 by predictive encoding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/61 in combination with predictive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/96 Tree coding, e.g. quad-tree coding

Abstract

A favorable merging or grouping of simply connected regions into which the array of information samples is sub-divided, is coded with a reduced amount of data. To this end, a predetermined relative locational relationship is defined enabling an identifying, for a predetermined simply connected region, of simply connected regions within the plurality of simply connected regions which have the predetermined relative locational relationship to the predetermined simply connected region. Namely, if the number is zero, a merge indicator for the predetermined simply connected region may be absent within the data stream. In other embodiments, spatial sub-division is performed depending on a first subset of syntax elements, followed by combining spatially neighboring simply connected regions depending on a second subset of syntax elements, to obtain an intermediate sub-division.

Claims

1. A decoder for decoding a data stream comprising an array of information samples, the decoder comprising a processor configured for executing a program code for decoding the data stream by:

extracting, from the data stream, a merge indicator and a candidate identifier, wherein the candidate identifier identifies a candidate region from a set of candidate regions of a current region which is one of a plurality of regions obtained by dividing the array of information samples;

selecting the candidate region from the set of candidate regions as a selected candidate region of the current region in accordance with the candidate identifier;

processing the merge indicator to determine copying or computing a first coding parameter associated with the current region based on a second coding parameter associated with the selected candidate region;

copying, if a determination is to copy, the first coding parameter from the second coding parameter;

computing, if a determination is to compute, the first coding parameter based on a prediction of the first coding parameter using the second coding parameter and a prediction residual of the first coding parameter; and

reconstructing the current region based on the first coding parameter.

2. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured for identifying the set of candidate regions with respect to the current region.

3. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured for determining the first coding parameter when the set of candidate regions have at least one identical coding parameter.

4. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured for extracting, from the data stream, the candidate identifier when the set of candidate regions do not have an identical coding parameter.

5. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the processor is configured for obtaining the plurality of regions by:

partitioning the array of information samples into a first set of regions in accordance with a maximum region size extracted from the data stream; and

sub-partitioning at least a subset of the first set of regions into a set of sub-regions based on multi-tree subdivision information associated therewith.

6. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the array of information samples includes depth information.

7. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the array of information samples is one of samples arrays related to different color components which form color planes of a picture.

8. The decoder of claim 1, wherein the first and second coding parameters are motion parameters.

9. The decoder of claim 8, wherein computing the first coding parameter is further based on a motion parameter difference value related to the first coding parameter.

10. A method for decoding a data stream comprising an array of information samples, the method comprising:

extracting, from the data stream, a merge indicator and a candidate identifier, wherein the candidate identifier identifies a candidate region from a set of candidate regions of a current region which is one of a plurality of regions obtained by dividing the array of information samples;

selecting the candidate region from the set of candidate regions as a selected candidate region of the current region in accordance with the candidate identifier;

processing the merge indicator to determine copying or computing a first coding parameter associated with the current region based on a second coding parameter associated with the selected candidate region;

copying, if a determination is to copy, the first coding parameter from the second coding parameter;

computing, if a determination is to compute, the first coding parameter based on a prediction of the first coding parameter using the second coding parameter and a prediction residual of the first coding parameter; and

reconstructing the current region based on the first coding parameter.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising identifying the set of candidate regions with respect to the current region.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising determining the first coding parameter when the set of candidate regions have at least one identical coding parameter.

13. The method of claim 10, further comprising extracting, from the data stream, the candidate identifier when the set of candidate regions do not have an identical coding parameter.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising obtaining the plurality of regions by:

partitioning the array of information samples into a first set of regions in accordance with a maximum region size extracted from the data stream; and

sub-partitioning at least a subset of the first set of regions into a set of sub-regions based on multi-tree subdivision information associated therewith.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein the array of information samples includes depth information.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein the array of information samples is one of samples arrays related to different color components which form color planes of a picture.

17. The method of claim 10, wherein the first and second coding parameters are motion parameters.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein computing the first coding parameter is further based on a motion parameter difference value related to the first coding parameter.

19. A non-transitory computer readable medium configured to store a data stream, the data stream comprising encoded information including an array of information samples which is divided into a plurality of regions, the data stream comprising:

a merge indicator and a candidate identifier, wherein the candidate identifier identifies a selected candidate region from a set of candidate regions of a current region which is one of a plurality of regions obtained by dividing the array of information samples, and the current region has a first coding parameter associated therewith; and

a second coding parameter associated with the selected candidate region, wherein the first coding parameter is copied or computed from the second coding parameter based on the merge indicator and is used to reconstruct the current region, wherein computing the first coding parameter is based on a prediction of the first coding parameter using the second coding parameter and a prediction residual of the first coding parameter.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the set of candidate regions is identified with respect to the current region.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the candidate identifier is inserted into the data stream when the set of candidate regions do not have an identical coding parameter.

22. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the first and second coding parameters are motion parameters.

23. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 22, wherein the data stream further comprises a motion parameter difference value related to the first coding parameter, and the computing of the first coding parameter is further based on the motion parameter difference value.

24. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, the data stream further comprising a maximum region size and multi-tree subdivision information associated with the array of information samples, wherein the plurality of regions is obtained by:

partitioning the array of information samples into a first set of regions in accordance with the maximum region size, and sub-partitioning at least a subset of the first set of regions into a set of sub-regions based on the multi-tree subdivision information.

25. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the array of information samples includes depth information.

26. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the array of information samples is one of samples arrays related to different color components which form color planes of a picture.

27. An encoder for encoding an array of information samples into a data stream, the encoder comprising a processor configured for executing a program code for encoding the array of information samples by:

dividing the array of information samples into a plurality of regions;

encoding, into the data stream, a merge indicator and a candidate identifier, wherein the candidate identifier identifies a candidate region from a set of candidate regions of a current region which is one of the plurality of regions;

processing the merge indicator to determine copying or computing a first coding parameter associated with the current region based on a second coding parameter associated with the selected candidate region;

computing, if a determination is to compute, a prediction of the first coding parameter based on the second coding parameter;

determining a prediction residual of the first coding parameter based on the first coding parameter and the prediction of the first coding parameter; and

encoding, into the data stream, the prediction residual and the second coding parameter.

28. The encoder of claim 27, wherein the processor is configured for dividing the array of information samples into the plurality of regions by:

partitioning the array of information samples into a first set of regions in accordance with a maximum region size; and

sub-partitioning at least a subset of the first set of regions into a set of sub-regions based on the multi-tree subdivision information associated therewith.

29. The encoder of claim 27, wherein the array of information samples includes depth information.

30. The encoder of claim 27, wherein the first and second coding parameters are motion parameters.