Efficient depth intraprediction method for H.264/AVC-based three-dimensional video coding

We present an intracoding method that is applicable to depth map coding in multiview plus depth systems. Our approach combines skip prediction and plane segmentation-based prediction. The proposed depth intraskip prediction uses the estimated direction at both the encoder and decoder, and does not need to encode residual data. Our plane segmentation-based intraprediction divides the current block into biregions, and applies a different prediction scheme for each segmented region. This method avoids incorrect estimations across different regions, resulting in higher prediction accuracy. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is superior to H.264/advanced video coding intraprediction and has the ability to improve the subjective rendering quality. (C) 2015 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)