The effect of depth map up-sampling on the overall quality of stereopairs

• Published in: Displays 2016-07, Vol.43, p.9-17
• Main Authors: Mahmoudpour, Saeed, Kim, Manbae
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Depth image based rendering; Depth map up-sampling; Stereoscopic image; Subjective test; Visual discomfort
• ISSN: 0141-9382; 1872-7387
• DOI: 10.1016/j.displa.2016.03.004

•The degradation effect of depth map up-sampling on stereoscopic image quality is investigated.•A depth quality assessment framework is provided to predict the quality of stereoscopic images with up-sampled depth maps.•The 3D quality prediction is improved using a fusion of multiple 2D image quality metrics. The quality of depth maps affects the quality of generated 3D content. Practically, the depth maps often have lower resolution than that of color images, thus, Depth map Up-sampling (DU) is needed in various 3D applications. DU can yield specific artifacts which can degrade the quality of depth maps as well as constructed stereoscopic (color plus depth map) images. This paper investigates the effect of DU on 3D perception. The depth maps were up-sampled using seven approaches and the quality of stereoscopic images obtained from up-sampled depth maps was estimated through subjective and objective tests. The objective quality prediction was performed using a depth map quality assessment framework. The method is able to predict the quality of stereoscopic images through evaluation of their corresponding up-sampled depth maps using 2D Image Quality Metrics (IQMs). In order to improve the quality estimation, the framework selects the 2D IQMs with highest correlation to subjective test. Furthermore, motivated by previous researches on multiple metrics combination, a new metric fusion method is proposed. Experimental results show that the combined metric delivers higher performance than single metrics in 3D quality prediction.