Patent ID: 8411932

Claim:
An image conversion method of converting an input two-dimensional image into three-dimensional image content, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining from an image database, a matched background image, which most closely approximates content of the input two-dimensional image; performing a rectification operation to obtain a rectified background image according to the matched background image and the input two-dimensional image, wherein the rectified background image and the input two-dimensional image have a same image-capturing plane; performing a segmentation operation on the input two-dimensional image to obtain a segmented image, which comprises a plurality of patches; performing a foreground and background detection operation to separate the patches of the segmented image into a foreground patch group and a background patch group according to the input two-dimensional image, the rectified background image and the segmented image; and performing a depth estimation operation to set a depth value corresponding to each of the patches of the background patch group and the foreground patch group and to obtain a depth map of the input two-dimensional image according to depth information provided by the rectified background image, wherein the three-dimensional image content is based on the input two-dimensional image and the depth map.