3D Video Coding  An Overview of Present and Upcoming Standards An overview of existing and upcoming 3D video coding standards is given. Various different 3D video formats are available, each with individual pros and cons. The 3D video formats can be separated into two classes: videoonly formats (such as stereo and multiview video) and depthenhanced formats (such as video plus depth and multiview video plus depth). Since all these formats exist of at least two video sequences and possibly additional depth data, efficient compression is essential for the success of 3D video applications and technologies. For the videoonly formats the H.264 family of coding standards already provides efficient and widely established compression algorithms: H.264AVC simulcast, H.264AVC stereo SEI message, and H.264MVC. For the depthenhanced formats standardized coding algorithms are currently being developed. New and specially adapted coding approaches are necessary, as the depth or disparity information included in these formats has significantly different characteristics than video and is not displayed directly, but used for rendering. Motivated by evolving market needs, MPEG has started an activity to develop a generic 3D video standard within the 3DVC adhoc group. Key features of the standard are efficient and flexible compression of depthenhanced 3D video representations and decoupling of content creation and display requirements.

Enhancements to MPEG4 MVC for Depth compression Depth map is expected to be an essential component of upcoming 3D video formats. In a multiview scenario, along with color (texture), amount of depth information will also increase linearly with the number of views. Therefore various techniques are being explored in the research community to efficiently compress the depth data. In this paper, we propose novel methods of depth compression based on MPEG4 Multiview Video Coding standard (MVC) without any substantial increase in computational complexity. Our aim is to improve depth coding gain with minimal modification to the standard. We present experimental results which indicate a considerable coding gain when compared with MVC.