Depth codec for real-time, high-quality light field reconstruction

Mitchell, Kenneth; Koniaris, Charalampos; Kosek, Malgorzata; Sinclair, David

Abstract

Systems, methods, and articles of manufacture are disclosed that enable the compression of depth data and real-time reconstruction of high-quality light fields. In one aspect, spatial compression and decompression of depth images is divided into the following stages: generating a quadtree data structure for each depth image captured by a light field probe and difference mask associated with the depth image, with each node of the quadtree approximating a corresponding portion of the depth image data using an approximating function; generating, from the quadtree for each depth image, a runtime packed form that is more lightweight and has a desired maximum error; and assembling multiple such runtime packed forms into per-probe stream(s); and decoding at runtime the assembled per-probe stream(s). Further, a block compression format is disclosed for approximating depth data by augmenting the block compression format 3DC+(BC4) with a line and two pairs of endpoints.

Citation

Mitchell, K., Koniaris, C., Kosek, M., & Sinclair, D. Depth codec for real-time, high-quality light field reconstruction. US20190313080A1

• Online Publication Date: Oct 10, 2019
• Deposit Date: Mar 3, 2020
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2606478
• Related Public URLs: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20190313080