Method and apparatus of inter-view candidate derivation for three-dimensional video coding

1. A method of deriving a candidate list for Merge mode, Skip mode or Inter mode in a three-dimensional (3D) or multi-view coding system, the method comprising:

receiving input data associated with motion information of a current texture block in a dependent view;

determining a first inter-view candidate based on already coded or decoded texture data, wherein the first inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list;

determining a second inter-view candidate based on said already coded or decoded texture data for the candidate list to include; and

encoding or decoding the motion information of the current texture block using the candidate list,

wherein the second inter-view candidate is determined from the motion information associated with a corresponding block in a reference view, wherein a location of the corresponding block is derived from a location of a neighboring block shifted by a selected disparity vector.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the corresponding block is located according to a first location of a right-bottom neighboring block and the selected disparity vector, and wherein the right-bottom neighboring block is located across from a right-bottom corner of the current texture block.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the selected disparity vector is a same disparity vector used to derive the first inter-view candidate.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the selected disparity vector is derived based on a second disparity vector and an offset value, wherein the second disparity vector is used to derive the first inter-view candidate.

5. The method of claim 2 , wherein the candidate list comprises a disparity candidate, and wherein the selected disparity vector is the same as the disparity candidate.

6. The method of claim 2 , wherein the selected disparity vector is derived from one or more depth samples of an already coded depth block associated with the current texture block.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein the selected disparity vector is derived from a global disparity vector.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the candidate list comprises a temporal candidate, and the second inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list before the temporal candidate according to a pre-determined order.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list only when a number of previous available candidates is smaller than a pre-specified number.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list only when the first inter-view candidate is not available.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second inter-view candidate is only compared to the first inter-view candidate to determine whether the first inter-view candidate and the second inter-view candidate are redundant.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first inter-view candidate is always placed at a first position of the candidate list according to a pre-determined order, wherein the first inter-view candidate is replaced by the second inter-view candidate if the first inter-view candidate is not available, and the first inter-view candidate is replaced by a default candidate if the second inter-view candidate is also not available.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein total number of candidates in the candidate list is increased by 1 when the second inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list.

14. The method of claim 1 , wherein inter-view residual prediction is not applied to the current texture block when the second inter-view candidate is selected from the candidate list.

15. The method of claim 1 , wherein inter-view residual prediction is applied to the current texture block according to the second inter-view candidate when the second inter-view candidate is selected from the candidate list.

16. The method of claim 1 , wherein inter-view residual prediction is applied to the current texture block selectively based on system configuration or a flag when the second inter-view candidate is selected from the candidate list.

17. The method of claim 1 , wherein the second inter-view candidate is derived according to a disparity vector and the disparity vector is used to derive a second disparity vector for a subsequent block of the current texture block.

18. An apparatus for deriving a candidate list for Merge mode, Skip mode or Inter mode in a three-dimensional (3D) or multi-view coding system, the apparatus comprising one or more electronic circuits, wherein said one or more electronic circuits are configured to:

receive input data associated with motion information of a current texture block in a dependent view;

determine a first inter-view candidate based on already coded or decoded texture data, wherein the first inter-view candidate is inserted into the candidate list;

determine a second inter-view candidate based on said already coded or decoded texture data for the candidate list to include; and

encode or decode the motion information of the current texture block using the candidate list,

wherein the second inter-view candidate is determined from the motion information associated with a corresponding block in a reference view, wherein a location of the corresponding block is derived from a location of a neighboring block shifted by a selected disparity vector.