Patent ID: 8155461

Claim:
A method of encoding a multi-view image, the method comprising: determining a new region of a picture at a second view, wherein the new region is not comprised in a picture at a first view but comprised in the picture at the second view, based on a difference in views between the picture at the first view and the picture at the second view which are input at a first time, wherein the pictures are from among pictures of a multi-view image input during a first time period via a plurality of image obtainment apparatuses having different views; adding the new region to a picture at the first view input at a second time and generating a reference picture; and encoding a picture at the second view input at the second time based on the generated reference picture, wherein the determining of the new region comprises determining the new region only comprised in the picture at the second view input at the first time, based on a difference in views between the picture at the first view and the picture at the second view input at the first time.