Patent ID: 6198852
Filing Date: 2001-03-06
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
A process for synthesizing a new image representing a new viewpoint of a scene from at least two existing images of the scene taken from different respective viewpoints, comprising:choosing a planar surface visible in said at least two of said existing images and transforming said at least two existing images relative to one another so as to bring said planar surface into perspective alignment in said at least two existing images;choosing a reference frame and computing parallax vectors between said two images of the projection of common scene points on said reference frame;specifying an image parameter on said reference frame of said new viewpoint, and constructing from said image parameter and from said parallax vectors a trifocal tensor data structure;computing scene points in said new view from the scene points in said existing images using said trifocal tensor data structure, to produce said synthesized new view image; andwherein said image parameter of said new view comprises the information sufficient, together with said parallax vectors, to deduce: (a) a trifocal ratio in the reference frame and (b) one epipole between the new viewpoint and one of said first and second viewpoints.