Disparity estimation based view interpolation with a simplified prediction structure for bandwidth-limited multiview video coding

High bandwidth has long been a bottleneck in multiview video technology. This paper proposed an algorithm which estimates the disparity of different viewpoints and then makes use of the estimated disparity map to interpolate virtual views of arbitrary middle viewpoints. For bandwidth-limited multiview applications, some real views can be ignored at encoder and synthesized automatically at decoder, thus the bandwidth required can be dramatically reduced. Moreover, a simplified prediction structure for this view-interpolation algorithm is addressed. The experimental results revealed that the proposed algorithm can reduce the video bitrates approximately 15%. And the subjective video quality is almost lossless, which is enough for some bandwidth-limited multiview applications, such as wireless video surveillance.