US 2017/0251208 A1 · SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR COMPRESSING VIDEO CONTENT

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing imaging content using spatially varying encoding quality. Imaging content may be acquired using spherical lenses (e.g., fisheye). When viewing spherical imaging content, spherical to planar image transformations may be utilized. Such transformations (e.g., equirectangular) may be characterized by spatially varying image distortion. Transformed images may be encoded. Encoding process may be configured based on spatially varying encoding quality. Encoding quality may be configured based on the transformation such that portions of the transformed image characterized by greater distortion may be encoded using lower quality (e.g. greater QP values); portions of the transformed image characterized by lower distortion may be encoded using greater quality (e.g. lower QP values). Such encoding may produce a bitstream characterized by a lower bitrate for a given quality and/or better quality for a given bitrate as compared to an encoding process that may apply a uniform encoding quality.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for providing imaging content, the system comprising:

an electronic storage configured to store a sequence of images of a first frame resolution;
a communications interface configured to communicate a bit stream associated with the stored sequence of images to a client device;
and
one or more physical processors configured to execute a plurality of computer readable instructions, the plurality of computer readable instructions when executed by the one or more physical processors is configured to:
access one or more source images, individual source images of the one or more source images characterized by a spherical field of view;
transform the one or more source images into a planar image using a spherical to planar transformation;
obtain a spatial quality distribution for image encoding based on the spherical to planar transformation;
and
encode the planar image using the spatial quality distribution such that:
one or more portions of the planar image are encoded at a first quality;
and
one or more other portions of the planar image are encoded at a second quality, the second quality being greater than the first quality.

9 more elements

An imaging system for providing imaging content, the apparatus comprising:

an optical element characterized by a spherical field of view;
an imaging sensor optically coupled to the optical element, the imaging sensor configured to obtain a source image;
a communications interface configured to communicate a representation of the source image;
and
one or more physical processors configured to execute a plurality of computer readable instructions, the plurality of computer readable instructions when executed by the one or more physical processors is configured to:
transform the source image into a planar image using a spherical to planar transformation;
obtain a spatial quality distribution for image encoding based on the spherical to planar transformation;
encode the planar image using the spatial quality distribution such that:
one or more portions of the planar image are encoded at a first quality;
one or more portions of the planar image are encoded at a second quality, the second quality being greater than the first quality;
and
provide the encoded planar image via the communications interface to a target destination.

9 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Systems and methods for compressing video content

Life of this patent

Systems and methods for compressing video content

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20