Depth Estimation using Modified Cost Function for Occlusion Handling

The paper presents a novel approach to occlusion handling problem in depth estimation using three views. A solution based on modification of similarity cost function is proposed. During the depth estimation via optimization algorithms like Graph Cut similarity metric is constantly updated so that only non-occluded fragments in side views are considered. At each iteration of the algorithm non-occluded fragments are detected based on side view virtual depth maps synthesized from the best currently estimated depth map of the center view. Then similarity metric is updated for correspondence search only in non-occluded regions of the side views. The experimental results, conducted on well-known 3D video test sequences, have proved that the depth maps estimated with the proposed approach provide about 1.25 dB virtual view quality improvement in comparison to the virtual view synthesized based on depth maps generated by the stateof-the-art MPEG Depth Estimation Reference Software. Keywords—depth estimation, disparity estimation, occlusion handling, MVD, graph cuts, DERS, Free viewpoint television.