Emerging 5G technologies bring various new opportunities for the media sector. In particular, they allow the incorporation of ultra-high resolution video formats and immersive augmented, virtual, and extended reality content into low-latency streaming applications while providing a reliable and high-quality user experience. In this paper, we focus on streaming 8K immersive content in a transmedia scenario and validate the feasibility of efficient, cost-effective solutions by measuring the added value brought by the latter. This is done using various key performance indicators in the framework of a European innovation project called 5GMediaHUB, with a scenario focusing on Interactive Digital Narratives. The main story is presented linearly to the user on the first screen, relying on an encoded video stream with marked frames. Each marked frame prompts the user to interact with the story on a secondary screen. The user is finally immersed in a Virtual Reality experience by completing a quiz on the second screen. The quality of the transmitted video is a critical requirement in this scenario, as well as a very low jitter and packet loss. Overall, a very low latency is required to allow effective and satisfactory interaction.
With the constant increase in video resolution and frame rate, notably those required for immersive applications, there is a need for efficient and reliable coding technologies suitable for very high visual quality delivery with very low latency. Immersive applications can use the low latency and high bandwidth throughput of 5G networks for increased mobility. JPEG XS is a low-complexity coding standard that can be implemented with very low latency. It is designed to provide visually lossless quality while offering compression efficiency, making it suitable for immersive applications that rely on video content. This paper reports a quality evaluation of omnidirectional video using 360° test sequences coded with JPEG XS. A subjective quality experiment was performed using an alternating double-stimulus method in a VR environment, where subjects could freely commute between the reference and distorted video. Test sequences were encoded at five different bitrates, ranging from 0.35 bpp to 2 bpp. These bitrates are suitable for real-time high-resolution video transmission over 5G networks. It was concluded that JPEG XS provides an effective low-latency solution suitable for high-quality immersive applications using 5G networks.
The JPEG committee started the definition of a new standard for holographic content coding under the project JPEG Pleno (ISO/IEC 21794). As a first standardization effort targeting holographic content, multiple challenges were faced, notably to select appropriate testing content, type of anchors to be used for comparison with proponent’s proposals and how to evaluate the quality for this type of content. This paper describes the development and options of the Common Test Conditions (CTC) defined to evaluate the responses to the call for proposals. The application of standard coding technology developed for image/video compression to holographic content led to several complicated issues to solve related to appropriate anchor selection and the generation of test content. Furthermore, knowledge on how to evaluate compression methodologies for holographic data was very limited until recently. Relevant studies typically use signal fidelity for quality evaluation by computing the SNR or the PSNR between the signal and correspondent decoded signal versions, in the hologram plane or the object plane, respectively. Although signal fidelity is always a measure of the ability of the compression technology to recreate a similar signal, it is usually not the best metric for perceptual evaluation. This paper describes the methodologies defined in the CTC for the perceptual and objective quality evaluation of the holographic data.
KEYWORDS: Holograms, Digital holography, Signal to noise ratio, Holography, 3D image reconstruction, JPEG2000, Computer generated holography, Image resolution, Microscopy
Holography is an acquisition and reproduction technique of visual content which allows, theoretically, for the reconstruction of the acquired scene without any difference with its real-world counterpart. The objective quality assessment of digital holograms coding tools is a very challenging problem because the signal properties of holograms are significantly different from those of regular images. Several approaches can be devised for holography compression and objective quality evaluation. The exploratory study presented in this paper aims at assessing a procedure for objective quality evaluation of data compression tools when applied to the hologram plane.
Pseudo-sequence based light field image compression methods use state-of-the-art video codecs like HEVC. Although video codecs have been designed to compress video sequences, they have good performance for light field images compression. Considering the light field images represented by their multi-views representation, a sequence with different image views is aligned following an appropriate strategy. However, there are some differences between video sequences and light field pseudo videos that can be utilized to improve the codec adaptation to the different view images compression. The pseudo-sequence images have spatial distances and predictable behaviors when compared to video sequences that have temporal distance and unpredictable behavior respectively. Considering these differences unnecessary operations can be avoided, while its performance can be improved. The video codecs compute the motion vectors using block matching motion estimation algorithms, which is computationally the most complex operation of any video codec. To reduce the motion estimation complexity many codecs use prediction models. In this paper, HEVC motion vectors search models are applied to the light field image views aligned as pseudo-sequences to analyze and find their repetitive and predictable patterns. These new patterns are then utilized for changing the HEVC motion estimation algorithm for codec complexity reduction using a state-of-the-art pseudo sequence compression method. Moreover, the use of parallel computing for the pseudo sequence compression method is addressed.
In recent years, we have observed the advent of plenoptic modalities such as light fields, point clouds and holography in many devices and applications. Besides plenty of technical challenges brought by these new modalities, a particular challenge is arising at the horizon, namely providing interoperability between these devices and applications, and – in addition – at a cross-modality level. Based on these observations the JPEG committee (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG1 and ITU-T SG16) has initiated a new standardization initiative – JPEG Pleno – that is intended to define an efficient framework addressing the above interoperability issues. In this paper, an overview is provided about its current status and future plans.
Point clouds have been gaining importance as a solution to the problem of efficient representation of 3D geometric and visual information. They are commonly represented by large amounts of data, and compression schemes are important for their manipulation transmission and storing. However, the selection of appropriate compression schemes requires effective quality evaluation. In this work a subjective quality evaluation of point clouds using a surface representation is analyzed. Using a set of point cloud data objects encoded with the popular octree pruning method with different qualities, a subjective evaluation was designed. The point cloud geometry was presented to observers in the form of a movie showing the 3D Poisson reconstructed surface without textural information with the point of view changing in time. Subjective evaluations were performed in three different laboratories. Scores obtained from each test were correlated and no statistical differences were observed. Scores were also correlated with previous subjective tests and a good correlation was obtained when compared with mesh rendering in 2D monitors. Moreover, the results were correlated with state of the art point cloud objective metrics revealing poor correlation. Likewise, the correlation with a subjective test using a different representation of the point cloud data also showed poor correlation. These results suggest the need for more reliable objective quality metrics and further studies on adequate point cloud data representations.
Digital holography is a growing field that owes its success to the provided three-dimensional imaging representation. This is achieved by encoding the wave field transmitted or scattered by an object in the form of an interference pattern with a reference beam. While in conventional imaging systems it is usually impossible to recover the correct focused image from a defocused one, with digital holography the image can be numerically retrieved at any distance from the hologram. Digital holography also allows the reconstruction of multiple objects at different depths. In a previous study, the benchmark of the main available image coding standard solutions JPEG, JPEG-XT, JPEG 2000 and the HEVC intra mode was performed for digital holographic data represented on the object plane. The HEVC intra main coding profile outperforms the other standards while JPEG 2000 results in very similar compression performance. In the current work, a scheme based on the HEVC intra mode codec for holographic information compression on the object plane is proposed. In the base layer, a 2D version of the object (amplitude information on object plane) is coded with HEVC intra main coding profile. Previously was observed that the phase information requires much higher bit rates than the amplitude information, as standardized codecs are not adapted for the compression of this type of information. In this paper we propose a model where the amplitude information is encoded with the HEVC intra mode codec, while the phase is represented by encoding the real information and the signal of the imaginary information. The real information is also encoded using the HEVC intra mode as it already revealed appropriate for compression of this type of information. The imaginary information signal is encoded with JBIG. The advantage of this scheme is that the amplitude information provides a direct 2D representation of the hologram while the phase information can be considered as a 3D enhancement layer. The results show that the proposed scheme outperforms the state of the art in holography compression, while allowing compatibility with the current standards and direct 2D visualization.
Digital holography is a growing field that owes its success to the provided three-dimensional imaging representation. This is achieved by encoding the wave field transmitted or scattered by an object in the form of an interference pattern with a reference beam. While in conventional imaging systems it is usually impossible to recover the correct focused image from a defocused one, with digital holography the image can be numerically retrieved at any distance from the hologram. Digital holography also allows the reconstruction of multiple objects at different depths.
The complex object field at the hologram plane can be separated on real and imaginary, or amplitude and phase components for further compression. It could be inferred that more inter-component redundancies exist in real and imaginary information than in the amplitude and phase information. Also, several compression schemes, like lossless compression, lossy compression, based on subsampling, quantization, and transformation, mainly using wavelets were considered. The benchmark of the main available image coding standard solutions like JPEG, JPEG 2000, and the intra coding modes available on MPEG-2, H264/AVC and HEVC video codecs were also analyzed for digital holographic data compression on the hologram plane.
In the current work, the benchmark of the main available image coding standard solutions JPEG, JPEG-XT, JPEG 2000 and the intra mode of HEVC, are performed for digital holographic data represented on the object plane, instead of the hologram plane. This study considers Real-Imaginary and Amplitude-Phase representations. As expected Real, Imaginary and Amplitude information present very similar compression performance and are coded very efficiently with the different standards. However, the phase information requires much higher bitrates (3/4 bpp more) to reach similar quality levels. Moreover, the Amplitude information results in slightly larger bitrates for the same quality level than real or imaginary information.
Comparing the different standards, the HEVC intra main coding profile is a very efficient model and outperforms the other standards. Furthermore, JPEG 2000 results in very similar compression performance. A comparison with studies where coding was performed on the hologram plane will reveal the advantages of coding on the object plane. Hence, becomes evident that future representation standards should consider the representation of digital holograms on the object plane instead of the hologram plane.
KEYWORDS: High dynamic range imaging, Facial recognition systems, Visualization, Time multiplexed optical shutter, Associative arrays, Information visualization, Detection and tracking algorithms, Databases, Imaging systems, Cameras
The gaining popularity of the new High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging systems is raising new privacy issues caused by the methods used for visualization. HDR images require tone mapping methods for an appropriate visualization on conventional and non-expensive LDR displays. These visualization methods might result in completely different visualization raising several issues on privacy intrusion. In fact, some visualization methods result in a perceptual recognition of the individuals, while others do not even show any identity. Although perceptual recognition might be possible, a natural question that can rise is how computer based recognition will perform using tone mapping generated images? In this paper, a study where automatic face recognition using sparse representation is tested with images that result from common tone mapping operators applied to HDR images. Its ability for the face identity recognition is described. Furthermore, typical LDR images are used for the face recognition training.
A novel approach for the mammary gland region segmentation of Breast Ultrasound exams is proposed. This
method is important because the mammary gland is the Region of Interest for pathological diagnosis.
Five different pre-processing methods that enhance the transition areas or remove the speckle of the ultrasound
images were selected: Non-linear diffusion, Speckle Reducing Anisotropic Diffusion, Entropy filter, Laplacian filter
and Homomorphic filter. The results of these processing methods define the features that are used as descriptors
for a K-Means and SVM classifier or as weak classifiers by an Adaboost classifier. The pixel classification results
in a rough tissue segmentation. A new method is proposed to interpolate the classification results into an accurate
tissue separation line, using graph theory. This step overcomes the problem of the discontinuities between the
different classified areas.
The developed segmentation method was applied to a database with 61 images, 34 without masses and 27
with masses collected using digital support, and segmented by an experienced medical oncologist in Centro
Hospitalar da Cova da Beira in Portugal. The presented results were obtained using cross-validation.
The emerging Multimedia Content Description Interface standard, MPEG-7, looks at the indexing and retrieval of visual information. In this context the development of shape description and shape querying tools become a fundamental and challenging task. We introduce a method based on non-linear diffusion of contours. The aim is to compute reference points in contours to provide a shape description tool. This reference points will be situated in the sharpest changes in the contour direction. Hence, they provide ideal choices to use as vertices of a polygonal approximation. If a maximum error between the original contour and the polygonal approximation is required, a scale-space procedure can help to find new vertices in order to meet this requirement. Basically, this method follows the non-linear diffusion technique of Perona and Malik. Unlike the usually linear diffusion techniques of contours, where the diffusion is made through the contour points coordinates, this method applies the diffusion in the tangent space. In this case the contour is described by the angle variation, and the non-linear diffusion procedure is applied on it. Perona and Malik model determines how strong diffusion will act on the original function, and depends of a factor K, estimated automatically. In areas with spatial concentration of strong changes of the angle this factor is also adjusted to reduce the noise effect. The proposed method has been extensively tested using the data- base contour of fish shapes in SQUID web site. A shape-based retrieval application was also tested using a similarity measure between two polygonal approximations.
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