Fast intra mode decision for depth coding in 3D-HEVC

The emergent 3D High Efficiency Video Coding (3D-HEVC) is an extension of the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard for the compression of the multi-view texture videos plus depth maps format. Since depth maps have different statistical properties compared to texture video, various new intra tools have been added to 3D-HEVC depth coding. In current 3D-HEVC, new intra tools are utilized together with the conventional HEVC intra prediction modes for depth coding. This technique achieves the highest possible coding efficiency, but leads to an extremely high computational complexity which limits 3D-HEVC from practical applications. In this paper, we propose a fast intra mode decision algorithm for depth coding in 3D-HEVC. The basic idea of the proposed algorithm is to utilize the depth map characteristics to predict the current depth prediction mode and skip some specific depth intra modes rarely used in 3D-HEVC depth coding. Based on this analysis, two fast intra mode decision strategies are proposed including reduction of the number of conventional intra prediction modes, and simplification of depth modeling modes (DMMs). Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can save 30 % coding runtime on average while maintaining almost the same rate-distortion (RD) performance as the original 3D-HEVC encoder.     

Rough mode cost–based fast intra coding for high-efficiency video coding

The quadtree-based coding unit (CU) and transform unit (TU) structure, as well as various prediction units (PUs) of HEVC, considerably increase encoding complexity in intra coding and inter coding. This paper proposes a rough mode cost (RMC)-based algorithm for accelerating CU/TU depth decisions and PU mode decisions in HEVC intra coding. For CU depth decisions, RMC values are used for the fast determination of CU partition. In the case of PU mode decisions, modes with higher RMCs are removed from the candidate list to reduce the number of test modes. For TU depth decisions, the TU partition of the mode with the least RMC is used to determine the TU partitions of remaining modes. The proposed TU partitioning method demonstrates superior performance to the default method in reference software. The proposed algorithm can reduce encoding time by approximately 51% on average, with a 0.69% increase in the Bjøntegaard-Delta (BD) rate.     

基于决策树的HEVC SCC帧内编码快速算法

为减少HEVC屏幕内容编码的编码时间,提高编码 效率,本文提出了一种基于决策树的HEVC屏幕内容帧内编码快速 CU划分和简单PU模式选择的算法。对视频序列特性分析,提取有效的特征值,生成决策树模 型。使用方差、梯度信息熵和 像素种类数用于生成CU划分决策树,使用平均非零梯度、像素信息熵等用于生成PU模式分类 决策树。在一定深度的决策 树模型中,通过对相应深度的CU的特征值的计算快速决策当前CU的划分与PU模式的类型。这 种利用决策树做判决的算法 通过减少CU深度和PU的模式遍历而降低编码复杂度,达到快速帧内编码的效果。实验结果表 明,与HEVC屏幕内容的标 准算法相比,该算法在峰值信噪比(PSNR)平均下降0. 05 dB和码率 平均增加1.15%的情况下,能平均减少30.81% 的编码时间。     

Fast algorithm based on the sole- and multi-depth texture measurements for HEVC intra coding

In High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), intra coding plays an important role, but also involves huge computational complexity due to a flexible coding unit (CU) structure and a large number of prediction modes. This paper presents a fast algorithm based on the sole- and multi-depth texture measurements to reduce the complexity from CU size and prediction mode decisions. For the CU size decision, evaluation results in the CU coding with one and multiple depths are utilized to classify CUs into heterogeneous, homogeneous, depth-prominent and other ones. Fast CU size decisions are made for different kinds of CUs. For the prediction mode decision, the tendencies for different CU sizes are detected based on multiple depths. The number of searching modes is decreased adaptively for the CU size with fewer tendencies. Experimental results show the proposed algorithm by off-line training reduces 53.32% computational complexity, with 1.47% bit-rate increasing.     

A novel fast intra mode decision for versatile video coding

The latest video coding standard Versatile Video Coding (VVC) obtains superior coding efficiency compared to the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), which is achieved by incorporating more effective and complex new coding tools. In this paper, we propose a novel fast intra mode decision algorithm for VVC, including following two strategies: (1) the correlation between the optimal modes of the adjacent blocks and the modes selected in the rough modes decision (RMD) process is analyzed and applied to reduce the modes in the candidate list; (2) modes in the candidate list are sorted in ascending order according to the modes’ cost calculated in the RMD process. An early termination method is proposed for terminating the optimal prediction mode decision process based on this new order early. These two strategies are incorporated into intra coding to reduce the coding complexity. Since these two strategies do not add any additional computational complexity, the proposed fast algorithm can achieve more complexity reduction. The experimental results show that the complexity reduction of the proposed algorithm is up to 44.74% compared to VVC reference software VTM2.0, and averagely 30.59% encoding time saving with 0.86% BDBR increase.     

基于时空相关性的HEVC帧间模式决策快速算法

新一代的高效率视频编码标准HEVC采用编码树单元（CTU）四叉树划分技术和多达10种的帧间预测单元（PU）模式,有效地提高了编码压缩效率,但也极大地增加了编码计算复杂度。为了减少编码单元（CU）的划分次数和候选帧间PU模式个数,提出了一种基于时空相关性的帧间模式决策快速算法。首先,利用当前CTU与参考帧中相同位置CTU、当前帧中相邻CTU的深度信息时空相关性,有效预测当前CTU的深度范围。然后,通过分析当前CU与其父CU之间的最佳PU模式空间相关性,以及利用当前CU已估计PU模式的率失真代价,跳过当前CU的冗余帧间PU模式。实验结果表明,提出的算法与HEVC测试模型（HM）相比,在不同编码配置下降低了52%左右的编码时间,同时保持了良好的编码率失真性能;与打开快速算法选项的HM相比,所提算法进一步降低了30%左右的编码时间。     

基于机器学习的HEVC帧内模式快速决策算法

针对高效视频编码(HEVC)计算复杂度过高的情况, 提出了一种基于机器学习的帧内快速决策算法。根据图像内容的平滑 程度将PU划分成3类,对具有一定平滑度的预测单元(PU)不需要遍历完所有的帧内预测模式 ,从而有效降低算法的计算复杂度。首 先,计算各个PU的左边参考像素方差、上边参考像素方差和总参考像素的方差,以及各个P U采用的最优的帧内预测模式, 这些方差反映了参考像素的平滑程度;然后,利用机器学习软件Weka对得到的数据进行分类 处理,得到分类决策树; 最后,根据决策树来判定各个PU需要测试的帧内模式,再对各个PU 遍历这些帧内模式,确 定最优的模式,减少不必要 预测,从而降低编码复杂度。实验结果表明,本文算法相对于标准的HEVC 15.0编码算法,在高码率的情况下,编码时间平 均节省约16.18%,BD-rate平均升高约0.25%,BD-PSNR平均降低约0.02 dB;在低码率的情况下,编码时 间平均节省约20.75%,BD-rate平均升高 约0.04%,BD-PSNR平均降低约0.00dB。     

利用纹理结构的HEVC快速帧内模式选择算法

高性能视频编码（HEVC）是刚确立的最新一代的视频编码标准。对于帧内编码,HEVC最大的特点是采用了从64×64至8×8的编码单元划分和35种帧内预测模式,HEVC通过遍历所有的分块和帧内预测模式,选取最优的预测方式,这种帧内预测方式在提高预测精度的同时也大大增加了编码的计算复杂度。为了降低帧内预测的计算复杂度,HM2.0版以上的HEVC测试软件采用一种基于两步预测的快速帧内模式选择算法。在此基础上本文首先提出了一种基于纹理方向的快速粗选方案,减少参与计算的粗选模式数,进而提出基于结构相关的决策方法,利用同质图像区域的纹理相似性,减少参与率失真代价函数计算的候选模式数量,进一步降低了帧内预测计算复杂度。实验结果表明,本文所提出的快速算法,在保持编码质量基本不变的条件下,可以使基于两步预测的快速帧内模式选择时间缩短25%。      

结合深度信息的多视点视频编码快速模式选择算法

多视点视频加深度(MVD,multi-view video plus depth)的编码格式包含多个纹理视频序列及其对应的深度图,深度图与对应的纹理视频具有相似的边缘信息。传统的编码模式不考虑两者的联系,单独编码导致复杂度高、编码时间过长。因此,合理利用深度图与纹理图的相似性进行编码,可以有效降低编码复杂度,同时应该确保编码质量不受影响。本文利用深度图的这一特点辅助纹理视频的编码,提出一种帧间快速模式选择算法,充分利用深度图与纹理图之间的相似性,建立一种联合复杂度模型,根据模型得到每个宏块的复杂度。对于复杂度低的宏块,在计算率失真代价之前跳过编码中一些不必要的模式,从而降低编码复杂度。实验表明,本文提出的快速模式选择算法,在保证率失真性能基本不变的情况下,能减少60.57%的编码复杂度,并最高能减少80.64%的编码时间。     

基于深度图像的H.264快速帧间模式选择算法

H.264编码标准的帧间模式选择算法采用全候选模式搜寻算法,为编码器带来了高运算复杂度。提出一种快速帧间模式选择算法,旨在降低H.264帧间编码的运算复杂度。算法利用深度图像信息从彩色图像中分割出背景区域和运动剧烈的区域,宏块根据所在的区域选择相应的编码策略,从而达到缩小候选模式范围,加快模式选择速度的目的。实验证明,该算法在图像质量基本不变的情况下编码时间平均节省23%以上。     

Fast CU size and prediction mode decision method for HEVC encoder based on spatial features

In the high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) standard, intra prediction has higher computational complexity compared with H.264/AVC (advanced video coding) because of increasing the number of intra prediction modes and also higher number of coding unit (CU) sizes. The HEVC encoder evaluates 35 prediction modes on five possible prediction unit (PU) sizes to find the one with the minimum rate–distortion cost. Although this approach improves coding efficiency, it is very time-consuming. In this paper, we propose a fast intra prediction method to reduce the complexity of I-frame coding. The proposed method consists of three stages which is based on smoothness spatial feature. In the first stage, a measure is introduced to estimate CU smoothness by using sum of absolute differences (SAD) among CU pixels in four directions. By considering that a smooth region can be predicted with larger CUs, when the measured smoothness parameter is lower than a predefined threshold, only the prediction modes in the current CU are evaluated. In the second stage, the number of intra prediction modes is reduced based on the calculated SADs in the previous stage. In the last stage, if the first three candidate modes resulted from rough mode decision stage in the previous PU and the current PU are similar, then the best mode prediction of the previous PU is selected as the best candidate mode. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can reduce the coding time on average to 43 % and maintain coding video quality, whereas bitrate increases negligibly (0.5 %).     

一种基于零块分布的快速帧间模式判决算法

针对新一代视频编码标准离散视编码(HEVC)帧间预 测编码计算复杂度过高的问题,提出一种利用变换量化 后零块分布特征进行快速帧间模式筛选的低复杂度算法。首先统计SKIP和帧间 2N×2N模式下零系数与 非零系数的区域分布特征,判断其运动特征和运动估计匹配效果,用以分析全零块下SKIP 模式的分布;同 时在非全零块下结合残差块的SATD代价分类筛选PU模式分布,从而优先选择符合零块分布 特征的PU 模式,以达到快速筛选帧间模式,降低计算复杂度的效果。实验结果表明,在低延迟和随机 访问配置条件下,本文提出的算法在保证编码性能的情况下,相比原有HM 快速算法, 编码时间平均分别可减少50.3和49.3%,BDBR仅降低0.03%,有效 地降低了编码复杂度。     

Sum-of-gradient based fast intra coding in 3D-HEVC for depth map sequence (SOG-FDIC)

As the latest video coding standard for multi-view plus depth video, 3D-HEVC yields high coding efficiency but at the cost of heavy computational complexity. To reduce the computational complexity, a fast intra coding algorithm based on sum-of-gradient criterion for depth map coding in 3D-HEVC, named SOG-FDIC, is proposed in this paper. Based on the observation that DMM modes and smaller partitioning sizes are rarely used in flat region, sum of gradient is presented to determine whether the current block belongs to the flat region so as to skip unnecessary checking of DMMs and smaller partitioning sizes. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can save about 21.8% coding time while keeping almost the same coding efficiency and the reconstructed video quality of depth maps and synthesized views, compared with the original 3D-HEVC. Moreover, it has been verified that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.     

A novel fast intra algorithm for VVC based on histogram of oriented gradient

The latest Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard incorporates a series of effective and complex new intra coding tools, which obtains superior coding efficiency than the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). However, this makes the intra coding more complicated and time-consuming. A fast algorithm for VVC from two aspects of fast mode decision and fast partition decision is proposed in this paper. For the fast mode decision, the relationship between bins with Histogram of Oriented Gradient (HOG) and intra modes is created for the mode selection, decreasing the planar modes for SATD and RDO. Moreover, we analyze the maximum bins to determine the final modes, and we use the modes of left and upper blocks as a reference for the current CU, which can early terminate RDO. Moreover, a two-step fast partition algorithm is proposed based on HOG for fast partition decision, in which two thresholds are investigated to control the uniformity of textures. The proposed fast algorithm is implemented on the VVC test model, and the experimental results show that it can achieve 69.07% time savings with only 2.96% BDBR increases averagely, which outperforms other relatively existing state-of-the-art methods. Moreover, to convince the universality of our algorithm, we further implement our method in Fraunhofer Versatile Video Encoder (VVenc) and Fraunhofer Versatile Video Decoder (VVdec), which have five settings to control the trade-off between encoding quality and efficiency for intra coding. The fast intra mode decision algorithm and fast partition algorithm decrease the complexity of intra coding for both VTM and VVenc, which shows the efficiency and universality of the proposed fast partition and fast mode decision algorithms.     

Low-Complexity Intra-Coding Scheme for HEVC

Compared with H.264/AVC, the latest video standard High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) known as H.265 improves the coding efficiency by adopting the quadtree splitting structure which is flexible in representing various textural and structural information in images. However, the computational complexity is dramatically increased, especially in the intra-mode decision process owing to supporting more partitions and modes. In this paper, we propose a low-complexity algorithm for HEVC intra-coding, which consists of a fast coding unit (CU) size decision (FCUSD) method and a fast prediction unit (PU) mode decision (FPUMD) method. In FCUSD, unnecessary CU sizes are skipped early according to the depth level of neighboring CUs and the rate distortion (RD) cost threshold derived from the former coded frame. In FPUMD, the PU mode and RD cost correlations between different depth levels are utilized to terminate unnecessary candidate modes. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve about 50.99 % computational complexity reduction on average with 1.18 % BD-rate increase and 0.08 dB BD-psnr loss.     

Fast depth map mode decision based on depth–texture correlation and edge classification for 3D-HEVC

The 3D extension of High Efficiency Video Coding (3D-HEVC) has been adopted as the emerging 3D video coding standard to support the multi-view video plus depth map (MVD) compression. In the joint model of 3D-HEVC design, the exhaustive mode decision is required to be checked all the possible prediction modes and coding levels to find the one with least rate distortion cost in depth map coding. Furthermore, new coding tools (such as depth-modeling mode (DMM) and segment-wise depth coding (SDC)) are exploited for the characteristics of depth map to improve the coding efficiency. These achieve the highest possible coding efficiency to code depth map, but also bring a significant computational complexity which limits 3D-HEVC from real-time applications. In this paper, we propose a fast depth map mode decision algorithm for 3D-HEVC by jointly using the correlation of depth map-texture video and the edge information of depth map. Since the depth map and texture video represent the same scene at the same time instant (they have the same motion characteristics), it is not efficient to use all the prediction modes and coding levels in depth map coding. Therefore, we can skip some specific prediction modes and depth coding levels rarely used in corresponding texture video. Meanwhile, the depth map is mainly characterized by sharp object edges and large areas of nearly constant regions. By fully exploiting these characteristics, we can skip some prediction modes which are rarely used in homogeneity regions based on the edge classification. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves considerable encoding time saving while maintaining almost the same rate-distortion (RD) performance as the original 3D-HEVC encoder.     

一种基于时域相关性的高性能视频编码快速帧间预测单元模式判决算法

为了降低高性能视频编码(HEVC)的编码计算复杂度,根据视频时域上高度相关性的特点,该文提出一种快速高性能视频编码(HEVC)帧间预测单元(PU)模式判决算法。分析了时域上相邻帧两帧相同位置编码单元(CU)的PU模式之间的相关性;同时,针对视频中可能存在对象运动,还分析了前一帧对应位置CU的周边CU与当前帧中当前CU间PU模式的相关性。根据分析的时域相关性,跳过当前CU中冗余的PU模式,从而降低编码复杂度。实验结果表明,在编码效率和峰值信噪比(PSNR)损失很小的情况下,在目前已有的HEVC快速帧间预测算法的基础上,进一步降低了31.30%的编码时间。     

A Fast Intra‐Prediction Method in HEVC Using Rate‐Distortion Estimation Based on Hadamard Transform

A fast intra‐prediction method is proposed for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) using a fast intra‐mode decision and fast coding unit (CU) size decision. HEVC supports very sophisticated intra modes and a recursive quadtree‐based CU structure. To provide a high coding efficiency, the mode and CU size are selected in a rate‐distortion optimized manner. This causes a high computational complexity in the encoder, and, for practical applications, the complexity should be significantly reduced. In this paper, among the many predefined modes, the intra‐prediction mode is chosen without rate‐distortion optimization processes, instead using the difference between the minimum and second minimum of the rate‐distortion cost estimation based on the Hadamard transform. The experiment results show that the proposed method achieves a 49.04% reduction in the intra‐prediction time and a 32.74% reduction in the total encoding time with a nearly similar coding performance to that of HEVC test model 2.1.     

Early merge mode decision for texture coding in 3D-HEVC

As the upcoming 3D video coding standard, high efficiency video coding (HEVC) based 3D video coding (3D-HEVC) has been drafted. In 3D-HEVC, the computational complexity of mode decision process is significantly high due to exhaustive modes’ checks for coding units (CU) derived from recursive quad-tree partitioning. In this paper, we propose an early merge mode decision method for complexity reduction of dependent texture views. First, inter-view correlation and hierarchical depth correlation of coding modes are separately analyzed for B frame and P frame. Then, conditions to early determine merge mode coded CUs are derived based on the correlations. All of the early determined CUs only check merge modes in the mode decision process, which brings considerable complexity reduction. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve average 20.4% of encoding time saving for dependent texture views with negligible rate distortion performance loss.     

CU encoding depth prediction,early CU splitting termination and fast mode decision for fast HEVC intra-coding

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is a new video coding standard achieving about a 50% bit rate reduction compared to the popular H.264/AVC High Profile with the same subjective reproduced video quality. Better coding efficiency is attained, however, at the cost of significantly increased encoding complexity. Therefore, fast encoding algorithms with little loss in coding efficiency is necessary for HEVC to be successfully adopted for real applications. In this paper we propose a fast encoding technique applicable to HEVC all intra encoding. The proposed fast encoding technique consists of coding unit (CU) search depth prediction, early CU splitting termination, and fast mode decision. In CU search depth prediction, the depth of encoded CU in the current coding tree unit (CTU) is limited to predicted range, which is mostly narrower than the full depth range. Early CU splitting skips mode search of its sub-CUs when rate distortion (RD) cost of current CU is below the estimated RD cost at the current CU depth. RD cost and encoded CU depth distribution of the collocated CTU of the previous frame are utilized both to predict the encoding CU depth search range and to estimate the RD cost for CU splitting termination. Fast mode decision reduces the number of candidate modes for full rate distortion optimized quantization on the basis of the low complexity costs computed in the preceding rough mode decision step. When all these three methods are applied, proposed fast HEVC intra encoding technique reduces the encoding time of the reference encoder by 57% on the average, with only 0.6% of coding efficiency loss in terms of Bjontegaard delta (BD) rate increase under the HEVC common test conditions.