Patent ID: 8294823

Claim:
A method, comprising: storing by a computing system background video data of a videoconference participant environment in a data store, the background video data defining, for each of a plurality of pixels, color data values of the pixel and an alpha channel value of the pixel; receiving by the computing system additional video data of the videoconference participant environment, the additional video data defining, for each of a plurality of pixels, color data values of the pixel and an alpha channel value of the pixel; determining by the computing system whether a pixel of the additional video data is a match to a corresponding pixel of the background video data, wherein a match indicates that both color data values of a pixel of the additional video data and color data values of a corresponding pixel of the background video data are within a threshold range; if a pixel of the additional video data is determined to be a match to a corresponding pixel of the background video data, then setting an alpha channel value for the pixel to a first value that designates the pixel of the additional video data as a transparent pixel; if a pixel of the video data is determined not to be a match to a corresponding pixel of the background video data, then setting an alpha channel value for the pixel to a second value that designates the pixel of the additional video data as an opaque pixel; generating by the computing system a first layer from the additional video data having pixels designated as transparent and pixels designated as opaque based on the respective alpha channel values, each of the pixels including the color data of the additional video data; generating by the computing system a second layer from a substitute background video data item, the second layer including data defining, for each of a plurality of pixels, color data of the pixel; merging by the computing system the first layer and the second layer to generate composite video data, the composite video data include each of the first layer and the second layer, the second layer being subordinate to the first layer so that only the pixels of the second layer that correspond to transparent pixels of the first layer are shown from the second layer when the composite video data is presented for display; and transmitting by the computing system the composite video data to a videoconference for display to other video conference participants.