An Overview of Emerging Technologies for High Efficiency 3D Video Coding

3D video coding is one of the most popular research area in multimedia. This paper reviews the recent progress of the coding technologies for multiview video (MVV) and free view-point video (FVV) which is represented by MVV and depth maps. We first discuss the traditional multiview video coding (MVC) framework with different prediction structures. The rate-distortion performance and the view switching delay of the three main coding prediction structures are analyzed. We further introduce the joint coding technologies for MVV and depth maps and evaluate the rate-distortion performance of them. The scalable 3D video coding technologies are reviewed by the quality and view scalability, respectively. Finally, we summarize the bit allocation work of 3D video coding. This paper also points out some future research problems in high efficiency 3D video coding such as the view switching latency optimization in coding structure and bit allocation.