Patent ID: 8855210

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of decoding multi-view video, comprising: decoding encoded streams of a stitched image using motion compensated decoding algorithm, said stitched image being generated by stitching non-overlapped region of each view image of the multi-view video to a boundary region of a middle view image of the multi-view video at an encoder; said non-overlapped region of each view image not being overlapped with other view image; decoding encoded streams of overlapped region of each view image of the multi-view video using motion- and disparity-compensated decoding algorithm, based on the decoded stitched image, wherein the decoded stitched image is used as a reference image for obtaining disparity information, wherein the disparity information is estimated for each of the view image, wherein the estimated disparity information comprises estimating a global disparity vector based on an adjacent view image toward the middle view image, wherein the estimating the global disparity vector comprises: reducing the size of each view image by a sub-sampling one pixel from each block unit of each view image, said block unit having a predetermined size; estimating an initial global disparity value for each of the reduced view images; and estimating the global disparity vector for the boundary region of each view image, the boundary region being defined by multiplying the estimated initial global disparity value by the sub-sampling rate; and restoring the multi-view video by combining the decoded non-overlapped and overlapped regions of each view image, and wherein the middle view image is partitioned into a plurality of slices and is encoded on a slice basis, and wherein a position where the middle view image overlaps with other view image is represented as a slice address and is comprised in a header of the encoded streams of the middle view image.