Coding method, decoding method, coding apparatus, decoding apparatus, program, and integrated circuit

Abstract

An encoding method including an access unit defining step (S502 to S508) for defining access units, and an encoding step (S526) for encoding, per access unit, the images that constitute said access unit. The access unit defining step (S502 to S508) includes an encoding unit determining step (S502) for determining whether to uniformly encode the images included in an access unit in field units or frame units, and a field type determining step (S504 to S508) for determining whether to uniformly encode the images in the top field or bottom field when it has been determined to encode the images included in the access unit in field units. Further, the encoding step (S526) encodes, per access unit, images in the formats that have been determined in the encoding unit determining step (S526) and the field type determining step (S502 to S508).

Description

technical field [0001] The present invention can be used for encoding method and decoding method of all multimedia data, especially can be used for encoding method and decoding method of H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC multi-viewpoint image. Background technique [0002] Three-dimensional images have been around for a long time. There are various methods of providing a three-dimensional visual effect to the viewer. One of these methods is to display two images respectively to the left and right eyes of the viewer. This is called stereo photography using two cameras to capture two images. As one of the conventionally used techniques for displaying stereoscopic images, there is a method of applying filtering to color components so as to be able to be viewed separately with one eye. In this technique, the resolution of images provided to each eye becomes low. [0003] With recent advances in display technology, viewers are now able to view images with the highest resolution with each eye....

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Therefore, the frame image of view 2 in access unit A cannot fully utilize the inter-view prediction from view 1, so the compression efficiency decreases

[0009] The problem with this is that each access unit container does not always have all images (ie, view components) with different viewpoints.

Therefore, the size of each access unit cannot be constrained by the constraints defined by the buffer model specified by the video specification in order to ensure proper encoding of compressed video

[0010] Another problem with the prior art (Multi-View Video Coding Specification) is that there is a constraint set for limiting the size of an Access Unit Container that includes images with multiple viewpoints (i.e., as defined in the MVC specification view component)

[0011] Constraints defined to limit the maximum size of an access unit do not guarantee that each view component within an access unit is properly decoded when each view is decoded separately by an independent decoder

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