Patent ID: 6996272
Filing Date: 2006-02-07
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for removing the background of visual content, said apparatus comprising: a color normalization module normalizing an original image; an image segmentation module segmenting said normalized image into a segmented image; a background mesh generation module simulating the variation of pixel colors in the background of said normalized image and generating an interpolated background mesh; a comparison module comparing said normalized image with said interpolated background mesh to generate a background mask, said background mask being formed by identifying and extracting coherent regions between said normalized image and said interpolated background mesh; a refinement module generating a refined background mask according to said segmented image and said background mask; and a background removal module generating a foreground image by masking out background from said original image according to said refined background mask; wherein said background mesh generation module further comprises: a resolution reduction sub-module reducing the resolution of said normalized image to form a reduced image, each pixel in said reduced image being regarded as one block; a border color averaging sub-module computing an average color vector for border blocks of said reduced image; a comparison sub-module locating initial background blocks on said reduced image based on a first decision rule; a growing sub-module repeatedly extending said initial background blocks towards neighboring pixels on said reduced image to generate final background blocks based on a second decision rule; and an interpolation sub-module generating an interpolated background mesh according to said reduced image and said final background blocks which serve as anchored blocks for interpolation.