A novel depth propagation algorithm with color guided motion estimation

Depth propagation is an effective and efficient way to produce depth maps for a video sequence. Motion estimation in most existing depth propagation schemes is performed only based on the estimated depth maps without consideration for color information. This paper presents a novel key frame depth propagation algorithm combining bilateral filtering and motion estimation. A color guided motion estimation process is proposed by taking both color and depth information into account when estimating the motion vectors. In addition, a bidirectional propagation strategy is adopted to reduce the accumulation of depth errors. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms most of the existing techniques in obtaining high quality depth maps indicating a better effect of the synthesized stereoscopic video.