Joint Bit Allocation and Rate Control for Texture and Depth Video Coding

Three-dimensional (3D) video systems based on Depth-image-based Rendering (DIBR) include both texture videos and corresponding depth maps. The joint coding of texture and depth video is important for the 3D video data. In this paper, a joint bit allocation and rate control method is proposed for 3D video coding. First, the characteristics of bit allocation and rate control are investigated. Second, a generic exponential distortion model is derived for joint video coding. Finally, based on the distortion model, the joint bit allocation problem is formulated as a constrained optimization problem and solved through the Lagrangian multiplier method. The system performance has been evaluated with several 3D video sequences. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves excellent rate-distortion performance.