Hole-filling based on disparity map for DIBR

Due to sharp depth transition, big holes may be found in the novel view that is synthesized by depth-image-based rendering (DIBR). A hole-filling method based on disparity map is proposed. One important aspect of the method is that the disparity map of destination image is used for hole-filling, instead of the depth image of reference image. Firstly, the big hole detection based on disparity map is conducted, and the start point and the end point of the hole are recorded. Then foreground pixels and background pixels are distinguished for hole-dilating according to disparity map, so that areas with matching errors can be determined and eliminated. In addition, parallaxes of pixels in the area with holes and matching errors are changed to new values. Finally, holes are filled with background pixels from reference image according to these new parallaxes. Experimental results show that the quality of the new view after hole-filling is quite well; and geometric distortions are avoided in destination image, in contrast to the virtual view generated by depth-smoothing methods and image inpainting methods. Moreover, this method is easy for hardware implementation.