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Holoscopic 3D imaging also known as “Integral imaging” was first proposed by Lippmann in 1908. It facilitates a promising technique for creating full colour spatial image that exists in space. It promotes a single lens aperture for recording spatial images of a real scene, thus it offers omnidirectional motion parallax and true 3D depth, which is the fundamental feature for digital refocusing. While stereoscopic and multiview 3D imaging systems simulate human eye technique, holoscopic 3D imaging system mimics fly’s eye technique, in which viewpoints are orthographic projection. This system enables true 3D representation of a real scene in space, thus it offers richer spatial cues compared to stereoscopic 3D and multiview 3D systems. Focus has been the greatest challenge since the beginning of photography. It is becoming even more critical in film production where focus pullers are finding it difficult to get the right focus with camera resolution becoming increasingly higher. Holoscopic 3D imaging enables the user to carry out re/focusing in post-production. There have been three main types of digital refocusing methods namely Shift and Integration, full resolution, and full resolution with blind. However, these methods suffer from artifacts and unsatisfactory resolution in the final resulting image. For instance the artifacts are in the form of blocky and blurry pictures, due to unmatched boundaries. An upsampling method is proposed that improves the resolution of the resulting image of shift and integration approach. Sub-pixel adjustment of elemental images including “upsampling technique” with smart filters are proposed to reduce the artifacts, introduced by full resolution with blind method as well as to improve both image quality and resolution of the final rendered image. A novel 3D object extraction method is proposed that takes advantage of disparity, which is also applied to generate stereoscopic 3D images from holoscopic 3D image. Cross correlation matching algorithm is used to obtain the disparity map from the disparity information and the desirable object is then extracted. In addition, 3D image conversion algorithm is proposed for the generation of stereoscopic and multiview 3D images from both unidirectional and omnidirectional holoscopic 3D images, which facilitates 3D content reformation.

In recent years camera prototypes based on Integral Imaging (II) have emerged that are capable of capturing three-dimensional (3D) images. When being viewed on a 3D display, these II-pictures convey depth and content that realistically change perspective as the viewer changes the viewing position. The dissertation concentrates on three restraining factors concerning II-picture progress. Firstly, there is a lack of digital II-pictures available for inter alia comparative research and coding scheme development. Secondly, there is an absence of objective quality metrics that explicitly measure distortion with respect to the II-picture properties: depth and view-angle dependency. Thirdly, low coding efficiencies are achieved when present image coding standards are applied to II-pictures. A computer synthesis method has been developed, which enables the production of different II-picture types. An II-camera model forms a basis and is combined with a scene description language that allows for the describing of arbitrary complex virtual scenes. The light transport within the scene and into the II-camera is simulated using ray-tracing and geometrical optics. A number of II-camera models, scene descriptions, and II-pictures are produced using the presented method. Two quality evaluation metrics have been constructed to objectively quantify the distortion contained in an II-picture with respect to its specific properties. The first metric models how the distortion is perceived by a viewer watching an II-display from different viewing-angles. The second metric estimates the depth-distribution of the distortion. New aspects of coding-induced artifacts within the II-picture are revealed using the proposed metrics. Finally, a coding scheme for II-pictures has been developed that inter alia utilizes the video coding standard H.264/AVC by firstly transforming the II-picture into a pseudo video sequence. The properties of the coding scheme have been studied in detail and compared with other coding schemes using the proposed evaluation metrics. The proposed coding scheme achieves the same quality as JPEG2000 at approximately 1/60th of the storage- or distribution requirements. / De senaste åren har kameraprototyper som kan fånga tredimensionella (3D) bilder presenterats, baserade på 3D-tekniken Integral Imaging (II). När dessa II-bilder betraktas på en 3D-skärm, delger de både ett djup och ett innehåll som på ett realistiskt sätt ändrar perspektiv när tittaren ändrar sin betraktningsposition. Avhandlingen koncentrerar sig på tre återhållande faktorer gällande II-bilder. För det första finns det en mycket begränsad allmän tillgång till II-bilder för jämförande forskning och utveckling av kodningsmetoder. Det finns heller inga objektiva kvalitetsmått som uttryckligen mäter distorsion med avseende på II-bildens egenskaper: djup och betraktningsvinkelberoende. Slutligen uppnår nuvarande standarder för bildkodning låg kodningseffektivitet när de appliceras på II-bilder. En metod baserad på datorrendrering har utvecklats som tillåter produktion av olika typer av II-bilder. En II-kameramodel ingår som bas, kombinerat med ett scenbeskrivningsspråk som möjligör att godtydligt komplexa virtuella scener definieras. Ljustransporten inom scenen och fram till II-kameran simuleras med strålföljning och geometrisk optik. Den presenterade metoden används för att skapa ett antal II-kameramodeller, scendefinitioner och II-bilder. Två kvalitetmått har tagits fram för att objektivt kvantifiera distorsion som kan uppträda i en II-bild med avseende på dess specifika egenskaper. Det första måttet modellerar hur distortionen uppfattas av en tittare som betraktar en 3D-skärm ur olika betraktningsvinklar. Det andra måttet beräknar distorsionens djupdistribution inom II-bilden. Nya aspekter av kodningsinducerade artefakter påvisas med de föreslagna kvalitetsmåtten. Slutligen har en kodningsmetod för II-bilder utarbetats som bland annat utnyttjar videokodningsstandarden H.264/AVC genom att först transformera II-bilden till en pseudovideosekvens (PVS). Kodningsmetodens egenskaper har studerats i detalj och jämförts med andra kodningsmetoder, bland annat med hjälp av de föreslagna kvalitetsmåtten. Den föreslagna kodningsmetoden åstadkommer samma kvalitet som JPEG2000 till ungefärligen 1/60-del av kraven på lagring och distribution.

In recent years, 3D camera products and prototypes based on Integral imaging (II) technique have gradually emerged and gained broad attention. II is a method that spatially samples the natural light (light field) of a scene, usually using a microlens array or a camera array and records the light field using a high resolution 2D image sensor. The large amount of data generated by II and the redundancy it contains together lead to the need for an efficient compression scheme. During recent years, the compression of 3D integral images has been widely researched. Nevertheless, there have not been many approaches proposed regarding the compression of integral videos (IVs). The objective of the thesis is to investigate efficient coding methods for integral videos. The integral video frames used are captured by the first consumer used light field camera Lytro. One of the coding methods is to encode the video data directly by an H.265/HEVC encoder. In other coding schemes the integral video is first converted to an array of sub-videos with different view perspectives. The sub-videos are then encoded either independently or following a specific reference picture pattern which uses a MVHEVC encoder. In this way the redundancy between the multi-view videos is utilized instead of the original elemental images. Moreover, by varying the pattern of the subvideo input array and the number of inter-layer reference pictures, the coding performance can be further improved. Considering the intrinsic properties of the input video sequences, a QP-per-layer scheme is also proposed in this thesis. Though more studies would be required regarding time and complexity constraints for real-time applications as well as dramatic increase of number of views, the methods proposed inthis thesis prove to be an efficient compression for integral videos.