Low complexity high efficiency coding of light fields using ensemble classifiers

Abstract Light field images can be efficiently compressed using standard video codecs, such as the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). However, the huge amount of data combined with the high computational complexity of HEVC, poses limitations on high-speed light field capturing and storage. This paper presents a contribution for low complexity encoding of light fields, in different formats using HEVC, based on a Random Forests ensemble classifier. Optimal features for training the classifier are found through a score fusion based approach. Using the HEVC still image profile, the proposed method gives speed-up of 56.23% for sub-aperture images. For pseudo video format, the proposed method outperforms others available in the literature, yielding an average speed-up of 62.18%, 56.54% and 44.73% for Random Access, Low-delay Main and All-Intra profiles respectively, with negligible decrease in RD performance. These are novel results in fast coding of light fields, which are useful for further research and benchmarking.