3D visual experience oriented cross-layer optimized scalable texture plus depth based 3D video streaming over wireless networks

• A 3D experience oriented 3D video cross-layer optimization method is proposed.
• Networking-related 3D visual experience model for 3D video streaming is presented.
• 3D video characteristics are fully considered in the cross-layer optimization.
• MAC layer channel allocation and physical layer MCS are systematically optimized.
• Results show that our method obtains superior 3D visual experience to others.

3D video streaming over the mobile Internet generally incurs the inferior 3D visual experience due to the time-varying characteristics of wireless channel. The conventional video streaming optimization methods generally neglect the harmony among different networking protocol layers. This paper proposes a cross-layer optimized texture plus depth based scalable 3D video streaming method to improve the expected 3D visual experience of the user by systematically considering the application layer texture-video/depth/FEC bit-rate allocation, MAC layer multi-channel allocation, and physical layer modulation and channel coding scheme (MCS) selection. In the cross-layer optimization, a networking-related 3D visual experience model which fuses the overlapped retinal view visual quality and depth sensation with mimicking human vision system is established to predict the 3D visual experience under the specific parameter configurations of different protocol layers. The efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed cross-layer optimized 3D video streaming method has been validated by subjective and objective experimental results.