1. A method for processing occlusion data in a sequence of video data frames, said method comprising: determining a format for said occlusion data, said format selected from a one of a sparse occlusion data format and a filled occlusion data format; when the format for said occlusion data is determined to be said filled occlusion data format, converting said occlusion data into a sparse occlusion data format before encoding; arranging 2D data, which is associated with said occlusion data, at location 0 in a reference picture list; identifying at least one of an occlusion area macroblock and a non-occlusion area macroblock for said occlusion data; encoding said occlusion data to produce encoded occlusion data, wherein for each non-occlusion area macroblock said encoding is realized by skip mode encoding, and wherein for each occlusion area macroblock said encoding is realized by selecting an encoding mode based on rate distortion cost; and outputting said encoded occlusion data together with an indicator representative of the format determined for said occlusion data.