A method for compressing depth information for a three-dimensional virtual scene, comprising: at a computing device, recognizing a three-dimensional virtual scene including one or more locally-maintained virtual objects (112, 114, 404A); receiving, from a remote device, positioning information for one or more remotely-maintained virtual objects (110, 404B) to be included in the three-dimensional virtual scene; characterized in that: for a virtual view of the three-dimensional virtual scene having a virtual perspective, classifying different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view as belonging to one of a plurality of different occlusion classes, each of the plurality of different occlusion classes specifying an occlusion relationship between locally-maintained virtual objects and remotely-maintained virtual objects in the virtual view; outputting a depth-compressed representation of the virtual view to the remote device, the depth-compressed representation indicating the occlusion class for each of the different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view; where the occlusion class for each of the different portions of the virtual view is indicated in the depth-compressed representation using a different unique indicator (702A, 702B, 702C, 702D) for each of the plurality of different occlusion classes. at a computing device, recognizing a three-dimensional virtual scene including one or more locally-maintained virtual objects (112, 114, 404A); receiving, from a remote device, positioning information for one or more remotely-maintained virtual objects (110, 404B) to be included in the three-dimensional virtual scene; characterized in that: for a virtual view of the three-dimensional virtual scene having a virtual perspective, classifying different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view as belonging to one of a plurality of different occlusion classes, each of the plurality of different occlusion classes specifying an occlusion relationship between locally-maintained virtual objects and remotely-maintained virtual objects in the virtual view; outputting a depth-compressed representation of the virtual view to the remote device, the depth-compressed representation indicating the occlusion class for each of the different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view; where the occlusion class for each of the different portions of the virtual view is indicated in the depth-compressed representation using a different unique indicator (702A, 702B, 702C, 702D) for each of the plurality of different occlusion classes. for a virtual view of the three-dimensional virtual scene having a virtual perspective, classifying different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view as belonging to one of a plurality of different occlusion classes, each of the plurality of different occlusion classes specifying an occlusion relationship between locally-maintained virtual objects and remotely-maintained virtual objects in the virtual view; outputting a depth-compressed representation of the virtual view to the remote device, the depth-compressed representation indicating the occlusion class for each of the different portions (502A, 502B, 502C, 502D) of the virtual view; where the occlusion class for each of the different portions of the virtual view is indicated in the depth-compressed representation using a different unique indicator (702A, 702B, 702C, 702D) for each of the plurality of different occlusion classes.