Inter-view dependency-based rate control for 3D-HEVC

We propose an inter-view dependency-based rate control (RC) algorithm for 3D extension of high efficiency video coding (HEVC). First, considering the rate-distortion (R-D) dependency between the synthesized views and the input views (including texture videos and depth maps), a synthesized view distortion model is derived. Second, a novel distortion model for dependent views is proposed by investigating the inter-view dependency between the base and dependent views. Based on these two distortion models, a joint optimal bit allocation strategy (including texture/depth level, view level, and frame level) is developed to allocate target bits for both texture videos and depth maps of different views. Furthermore, an effective initial quantization parameter decision scheme considering the characteristics of the input video content is presented. Extensive experimental results exhibit that the proposed scheme achieves a higher rate control accuracy and provides a better R-D performance than the state-of-the-art RC algorithms.