A system and process for compressing and decompressing multiple video
streams depicting substantially the same dynamic scene from different
viewpoints that from a grid of viewpoints. Each frame in each
contemporaneous set of video frames of the multiple streams is
represented by at least a two layers--a main layer and a boundary layer.
Compression of the main layers involves first designating one or more of
these layers in each set of contemporaneous frames as keyframes. For each
set of contemporaneous frames in time sequence order, the main layer of
each keyframe is compressed using an inter-frame compression technique.
In addition, the main layer of each non-keyframe within the frame set
under consideration is compressed using a spatial prediction compression
technique. Finally, the boundary layers of each frame in the current
frame set are each compressed using an intra-frame compression technique.
Decompression is generally the reverse of the compression process.