Three-dimensional (3D) audiovisual content is nowadays the driving force of many multimedia applications and services as well as development of different support technologies. The recent evolution of 3D media technologies has been quite diverse and progressing in different directions, not only enhancing existing technology but also developing and pushing forward new and richer content-driven applications. The main goals of using 3D multimedia have been maintained over the years as the ability to provide users with perceptual elements (mostly audiovisual) capable of providing an immersion feeling of being part of the scene, interacting and perceiving the 3D nature of the real physical environments conveyed by 3D content. More recently, the search for better technology, more pleasant user experiences and growing consumer markets have been driving a lot of research projects and new results with high potential impact in future evolution of 3D multimedia services and applications.

While immersive multimedia systems have been attracting increasing attention from researchers, industry and consumer market, many technological challenges remain associated with the huge amount of data that has to be dealt with at all stages of delivery systems. Evolution in this field has been essentially accomplished through expansion of audiovisual acquisition and rendering from single to many (virtually infinite) spatial locations, which requires audiovisual scene representations through acoustic wave fields and light fields, rather than single audio and video capturing the scene from a single spatial location. In this context, the ultimate goal of 3D multimedia technologies is to bring higher realism in the visual scenes being communicated and to provide the user with more creative tools for interacting with the visual content. Correspondingly, the interest in 3D technologies has been ever strong caused by their potential to enrich the human perception and support the development of novel applications and services in areas such as entertainment, 3DTV, games, medical and scientific visualization. Subsequently, the advances in 3D multimedia technologies open new market opportunities and enhance the user experience. Many research projects have aimed at developing future 3D technologies and reaching the next frontiers. As exciting as the novel results could be, they are always only the current state of the art and a starting point to go beyond.

This book presents recent developments in the field of 3D visual communications, departing from current technologies and analyzing their evolution to reveal the constraints that still limit the ultimate 3D user experience.

Multi-view video and light field representations are characteristic of the current trends in 3D visual technologies, and thus, they are addressed first in order to establish the fundamentals for representing the latest developments in efficient coding and delivery methods and tools. The aim to capture high-quality 3D visual content faces the need to process high amount of captured data. This, subsequently, calls for new efficient representations and effective coding tools. In this context, the book describes advances in multi-view video coding, including both standard-compliant techniques and non-standard ones, dense multi-view and depth-based coding.

Light field imaging is an emerging topic, currently gaining importance in 3D multimedia capture, coding and display. Therefore, the book also presents advanced compression methods aimed specifically at light field compression for storage and transmission, including simulation results and performance evaluation. The impact of network errors and data loss in multi-view video, depth and light field coded streams is further addressed for different packet loss conditions. Advanced error-concealment methods capable of efficiently reconstructing lost data in different types coded streams are presented, including evaluation of their performance in terms of objective quality of the visual information delivered to users.

The book also covers transmission systems, including network technologies and hybrid transport networks, used to support 3D multimedia services and applications. Additionally, recent research results, focusing different networking aspects of 3D delivery systems, are highlighted. For research and engineering, several simulation and emulation tools including testbeds are presented for test and/or performance evaluation, system design and benchmarking. These are particularly useful in research studies or development of innovative solutions for problems affecting the 3D multimedia performance of integrated delivery systems and communications infrastructures.

3D is about immersive and interactive experience; thus, primary factors for its high-quality delivery are the psychological factors in the context of multimedia consumption, the computational models of 3D perception and related quality metrics. The book presents several quality evaluation methods and related metrics for 3D video delivery systems, including monitoring and matching the quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE). The use of standard methodologies in relation with various quality assessment objectives is discussed. Comprehensive analysis of human factors and their relationship with specific 3D visual technologies, which influence the overall user experience, are further presented.

Another essential element in research and development projects involving the field of 3D video delivery systems is common datasets, publicly available, to allow comparison of results and validation of research advances obtained in different labs worldwide. Following the importance of datasets in this field, the book presents several publicly available datasets, which are relevant for active researchers and engineers dealing with acquisition, processing and coding of 3D visual data, as well as delivery through networks with different types of constraints (e.g. errors, losses, delays, etc.).

Overall, this book includes contributions from many researchers of European universities, companies and research centres, which collaborated together to scientific advances in the field of 3D multimedia delivery systems, within the scope of the European framework for Cooperation in Science and Technology, COST Action IC1105, 3D Content Creation, Coding and Transmission over Future Media Networks (3D-ConTourNet).