Fast 3D-HEVC encoder algorithm for multiview video plus depth coding

The three-dimensional high efficiency video coding (3D-HEVC) is an extension of the HEVC standard for the compression of the multiview video plus depth (MVD) format. In 3D-HEVC, additional coding tools have been added to HEVC for improving the coding efficiency of the dependent video views and depth maps. Those tools achieve the highest possible coding efficiency, but also bring extremely high computational complexity which limits 3D-HEVC from real-time applications. In this paper, we propose a fast 3D-HEVC encoder algorithm based on the texture video and depth map correlation to reduce MVD coding computational complexity. Since the video texture and depth map represent the same scene at the same time instant (they have the same motion characteristics), it is not efficient to use all the prediction modes in 3D-HEVC mode decision procedure. The basic idea of the algorithm is to utilize the texture video and depth map property of coding information to predict the current CU prediction mode and early skip unnecessary variable-size mode decision. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed fast 3D-HEVC encoder algorithm can save 75% computational complexity on average, while maintaining almost the same rate-distortion (RD) performance as the original 3D-HEVC encoder.