3-D video compositing: towards a compact representation for video sequences

In order to achieve good quality very low bit rate video coding, new techniques leading to highly compact representations for video sequences must be investigated. We present a novel video codec framework, where video sequences are represented in terms of stochastic nonparametric 3-D object models and motion script estimates. Multi-property object models, carrying both shape and color information, are incrementally built from video and range sequences. Motion estimates are obtained by depth map registration. We refer to this framework as 3-D video compositing, or 3DVC for short. In this paper, we will describe 3DVC in detail, and present experimental results where interframe compression ratios in the range of 10/sup 2/ to 10/sup 3/ have been achieved.