A novel virtual viewpoint merging method based on machine learning

Abstract

In multi-view video system, multiple video plus depth is main data format of 3D scene representation. Continuous virtual views can be generated by using depth image based rendering (DIBR) technique. DIBR process includes geometric mapping, hole filling and merging. Unique weights, inversely proportional to the distance between the virtual and real cameras, are used to merge the virtual views. However, the weights might not the optimal ones in terms of virtual view quality. In this paper, a novel virtual view merging algorithm is proposed. In the proposed algorithm, machine learning method is utilized to establish an optimal weight model. In the model, color, depth, color gradient and sequence parameters are taken into consideration. Firstly, we render the same virtual view from left and right views, and select the training samples by using a threshold. Then, the eigenvalues of the samples are extracted and the optimal merging weights are calculated as training labels. Finally, support vector classifier (SVC) is adopted to establish the model which is used for guiding virtual views rendering. Experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the quality of virtual views for most sequences. Especially, it is effective in the case of large distance between the virtual and real cameras. And compared to the original method of virtual view synthesis, the proposed method can obtain more than 0.1dB gain for some sequences.