Currently available 360° cameras normally capture several images covering a scene in all directions around a shooting point. The captured images are spherical in nature and are mapped to a two-dimensional plane using various projection methods. Many projection formats have been proposed for 360° videos. However, standards for a quality assessment of 360° images are limited. In this paper, various projection formats are compared to explore the problem of distortion caused by a mapping operation, which has been a considerable challenge in recent approaches. The performances of various projection formats, including equi-rectangular, equal-area, cylindrical, cube-map, and their modified versions, are evaluated based on the conversion causing the least amount of distortion when the format is changed. The evaluation is conducted using sample images selected based on several attributes that determine the perceptual image quality. The evaluation results based on the objective quality metrics have proved that the hybrid equi-angular cube-map format is the most appropriate solution as a common format in 360° image services for where format conversions are frequently demanded. This study presents findings ranking these formats that are useful for identifying the best image format for a future standard.
Keywords: 360° image; cube-map projection; cylindrical projection; equal-area projection; equi-rectangular projection; image quality evaluation; objective image quality metric.