Fast mode decision based on texture–depth correlation and motion prediction for multiview depth video coding

The motion estimation and disparity estimation are used to remove the temporal and inter-view redundancies in multiview plus depth video coding, however, the variable block-size ME and DE make the computational complexity increase dramatically. This drawback limits it to be applied in real-time applications. In this paper, based on the mode correlations between depth video and its corresponding texture video, motion prediction and coded block pattern, we propose a fast mode decision algorithm to reduce the computational complexity of multiview depth video coding. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can achieve 67.18 and 69.90 % encoding time saving for even and odd views, respectively, while maintaining a comparable rate-distortion performance. In addition, with the dramatic encoding time reduction, the proposed algorithm becomes more suitable for real-time applications.