Angularly continuous light-field format: Concept, implementation, and evaluation

Abstract

In this paper, we present the concept, the implementation, and the evaluation of our novel angularly continuous light-field format. We compared the subjective visual performance of our format with the perspective camera format through a series of subjective and objective tests. In our extensive subjective study, we used multiple absolute and comparative rating scales and various visual stimuli with different contents and angular resolutions. The perceived quality was assessed by a total of 36 test participants, who were separated based on their scientific expertise. The objective quality was evaluated through the degradations caused by three well-known compression methods. The obtained results indicate that our light-field format may outperform the conventional format, and it generally can provide at least equivalent visual quality. Furthermore, these findings open the way for data size optimization, without compromising the achieved level of perceived quality.