Multi-view video coding with spatial random access functionality

To obtain fast rendering effects of virtual viewpoint video, in this paper we propose a novel multi-view video coding method with spatial random access functionality based on H.264/AVC codec. An independent space-time cube coding is first proposed to limit the scope of inter-frame prediction via flexible re-organizing GOP partitions in time and space dimensions, which guarantees the independent decoding of each cube. As a result, random access of specific regions in the compressed data of a picture can be accelerated. The conflict of performance between full-frame compression and spatial random accessibility is then further ameliorated through regulating inter-prediction space. The results demonstrate that the proposed coding scheme not only makes a good trade-off between full-frame compression and spatial random access flexibility, but also supports selective streaming to save the channel bandwidth.