METHOD AND DEVICE FOR PROCESSING A DEPTH-MAP

• US 20100215251A1
• Filed: 10/02/2008
• Published: 08/26/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/11/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Klein Gunnewiek, Reinier Bernardus Maria, Bruls, Wilhelmus Hendrikus Alfonsus
• Granted Patent: US 8,447,096 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/154
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/128 Adjusting depth or disparity
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 13/194 Transmission of image signals
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/597 specially adapted for multi-view video sequence encoding

Abstract

The present invention relates to a device and apparatus for processing a depth-map 710, the method comprising obtaining a depth-map 710 based on a lossy compressed depth-map, the depth-map 710 comprising depth information of a scene from a viewpoint, the scene comprising an object, obtaining occlusion information for the scene from the viewpoint, the occlusion information comprising information occluded by the object in the depth-map 710, and processing at least part of the depth information using at least part of the occlusion information in order to reduce compression artifacts in the depth-map 710.

Claims

1. Method of processing a depth-map (875), the method comprising:

obtaining a depth-map based on a lossy compressed depth-map, the depth-map comprising depth information of a scene from a viewpoint, the scene comprising an object,

obtaining occlusion information for the scene from the viewpoint, the occlusion information comprising information occluded by the object in the depth-map, and

processing at least part of the depth information using at least part of the occlusion information in order to reduce compression artifacts in the depth-map.

2. Method of claim 1, wherein the occlusion information comprises depth information occluded by the object.

3. Method of claim 1, wherein the processing step comprises processing at least part of the depth information within a predetermined region around a transition in the depth information related to the object.

4. Method of claim 1, wherein the processing step comprises processing at least part of the depth information within a predetermined region around the object.

5. Method of claim 1, further comprising:

obtaining metadata providing information pertaining to the size of the region.

6. Method of claim 1, wherein at least part of the occlusion information is occlusion information from a region corresponding to the region of the depth information being processed.

7. Method of claim 1, wherein the lossy compression algorithm used for generating the lossy compressed depth-map introduces noise around a transition in depth information.

8. Method of claim 1, wherein the lossy compression algorithm used for generating the lossy compressed depth-map uses a frequency domain representation for representing depth information in the lossy compressed depth-map.

9. Method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises establishing a transition in the depth information.

10. Method of claim 1, wherein the processing step comprises:

establishing a replacement criterion for a pixel from the depth information in proximity of a depth transition, the replacement criterion classifying which side of the transition the pixel belongs to; and

conditionally replacing the pixel from the depth information based on the replacement criterion with a replacement pixel, the replacement pixel statistically corresponding with the spatial context as indicated by the replacement criterion;

wherein at least one of the replacement criterion and the replacement pixel are based on occlusion information.

11. Method of claim 10, wherein the replacement criterion is established by means of filtering over at least one of:

the spatial context of the pixel from the depth information and

the spatial context of a pixel from the occlusion information corresponding to the pixel from the depth information.

12. Method of claim 11, wherein the replacement pixel is one of:

a pixel from the occlusion depth information corresponding with the pixel from the depth information and

a pixel based on a spatial context of the pixel from the occlusion depth information corresponding with the pixel from the depth information.

13. Method of claim 2, wherein the processing step comprises establishing one of a minimum and a maximum value from among:

a pixel from the depth information and

a corresponding pixel from the occlusion information.

14. Method of claim 1, wherein metadata is provided pertaining to the size of the region for processing.

15. Device (800) for processing a depth-map (875), the device comprising:

means (805) arranged to obtain a depth-map based on a lossy compressed depth-map, the depth-map comprising depth information of a scene from a viewpoint, the scene comprising an object,

means (810) arranged to obtain occlusion information for the scene from the viewpoint, the occlusion information comprising information occluded by the object in the depth-map, and

means (815) arranged to process at least part of the depth information using at least part of the occlusion information in order to reduce compression artifacts in the depth-map (875).