Histogram-Based Prefiltering for Luminance and Chrominance Compensation of Multiview Video

Significant advances have recently been made in the coding of video data recorded with multiple cameras. However, luminance and chrominance variations between the camera views may deteriorate the performance of multiview codecs and image-based rendering algorithms. A histogram matching algorithm can be applied to efficiently compensate for these differences in a prefiltering step. A mapping function is derived which adapts the cumulative histogram of a distorted sequence to the cumulative histogram of a reference sequence. If all camera views of a multiview sequence are adapted to a common reference using histogram matching, the spatial prediction across camera views is improved. The basic algorithm is extended in three ways: a time-constant calculation of the mapping function, RGB color conversion, and the use of global disparity compensation. The best coding results are achieved when time-constant histogram calculation and RGB color conversion are combined. In this case, the usage of histogram matching prior to multiview encoding leads to substantial gains in the coding efficiency of up to 0.7 dB for the luminance component and up to 1.9 dB for the chrominance components. This prefiltering step can be combined with block-based illumination compensation techniques that modify the coder and decoder themselves, especially with the approach implemented in the multiview reference software of the Joint Video Team (JVT). Additional coding gains up to 0.4 dB can be observed when both methods are combined.