Stixel on the bus: An efficient lossless compression scheme for depth information in traffic scenarios

Abstract

The modern automotive industry has to meet the requirement of providing a safer, more comfortable and interactive driving experience. Depth information retrieved from a stereo vision system is one significant resource enabling vehicles to understand their environment. Relying on the stixel, a compact representation of depth information using thin planar rectangles, the problem of processing huge amounts of depth data in real-time can be solved. In this paper, we present an efficient lossless compression scheme for stixels, which further reduces the data volume by a factor of 3.3863. The predictor of the proposed approach is adapted from the LOCO-I (LOw COmplexity LOssless COmpression for Images) algorithm in the JPEG-LS standard. The compressed stixel data could be sent to the in-vehicle communication bus system for future vehicle applications such as autonomous driving and mixed reality systems. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.