Method and Apparatus for Block-Based Compression of Light-field Images

A system, comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• a memory comprising program instructions, wherein the program instructions are executable by the at least one processor to:
• obtain a light-field image, wherein the light-field image comprises multiple microimages, wherein the dimensions of the microimages are different than blocking dimensions used by a block-based compression technique;
• generate a block in a preprocessed light-field image from each microimage in the light-field image, wherein each block contains light-field information from a corresponding microimage, and wherein the dimensions of each block are the same as the blocking dimensions used by the block-based compression technique;
• compress the preprocessed light-field image in accordance with the block-based compression technique to generate a compressed light-field image;
• and
• store the compressed light-field image to a storage device.

A computer-readable storage medium storing program instructions, wherein the program instructions are computer-executable to implement:

• obtaining a light-field image, wherein the light-field image comprises multiple microimages, wherein the dimensions of the microimages are different than blocking dimensions used by a block-based compression technique;
• generating a block in a preprocessed light-field image from each microimage in the light-field image, wherein each block contains light-field information from a corresponding microimage, and wherein the dimensions of each block are the same as the blocking dimensions used by the block-based compression technique;
• compressing the preprocessed light-field image in accordance with the block-based compression technique to generate a compressed light-field image;
• and
• storing the compressed light-field image to a storage medium.