Hybrid linear weighted prediction and intra block copy based light field image coding

Light field imaging can capture both spatial and angular information of a 3D scene and is considered as a prospective acquisition and display solution to supply a more natural and fatigue-free 3D visualization. However, one problem that occupies an important position to deal with the light field data is the sheer size of data volume. In this context, efficient coding schemes for this particular type of image are needed. In this paper, we propose a hybrid linear weighted prediction and intra block copy based light field image codec architecture based on high efficiency video coding screen content coding extensions (HEVC SCC) standard to effectively compress the light field image data. In order to improve the prediction accuracy, a linear weighted prediction method is integrated into HEVC SCC standard, where a locally correction weighted based method is used to derive the weight coefficient vector. However, for the non-homogenous texture area, a best match in linear weighted prediction method does not necessarily lead to a good prediction of the coding block. In order to alleviate such shortcoming, the proposed hybrid codec architecture explores the idea of using the intra block copy scheme to find the best prediction of the coding block based on rate-distortion optimization. For the reason that the used “try all then select best” intra mode decision method is time-consuming, we further propose a fast mode decision scheme for the hybrid codec architecture to reduce the computation complexity. Experimental results demonstrate the advantage of the proposed hybrid codec architecture in terms of different quality metrics as well as the visual quality of views rendered from decompressed light field content, compared to the HEVC intra-prediction method and several other prediction methods in this field.