System and method for de-noising multiple copies of a signal
First Claim
1. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for automatically constructing an image mosaic from a set of images of a scene, said computer executable instructions comprising:
- inputting a set of images of a scene;
registering the set of images;
comparing the set of images to identify areas of difference between the images for all images, said areas of difference representing regions of potential occlusion in each image;
determining, for each image, whether regions of potential occlusion in each image represent actual regions of occlusion, or whether the regions of potential occlusion in each image represent regions of non-occlusion, by determining a level of discontinuity along an exterior border of each region of potential occlusion in each image; and
creating a mosaic image by replacing at least one actual region of occlusion in one image from the set of images with corresponding regions of non-occlusion from at least one other image from the set of images of the scene.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A “composite signal generator” automatically combines two or more copies of a signal to produce a composite that is better than the individual copies. For example, given two or more input images of a scene captured from approximately the same viewpoint, the composite signal generator automatically produces a composite image having reduced or eliminated areas of occlusion with respect to any occlusions existing in the input images. First, the input images are registered using conventional image registration techniques. Differences between the registered images are then used to identify regions of potential occlusion in one or more of the images. A determination of which image is actually occluded is made by identifying which image has a larger discontinuity along a border of the potentially occluded regions. A composite image is then created by choosing one image and mosaicing parts from the other images where it is occluded and they are not.
221 Citations
28 Claims
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1. A computer-readable medium having computer executable instructions for automatically constructing an image mosaic from a set of images of a scene, said computer executable instructions comprising:
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inputting a set of images of a scene;
registering the set of images;
comparing the set of images to identify areas of difference between the images for all images, said areas of difference representing regions of potential occlusion in each image;
determining, for each image, whether regions of potential occlusion in each image represent actual regions of occlusion, or whether the regions of potential occlusion in each image represent regions of non-occlusion, by determining a level of discontinuity along an exterior border of each region of potential occlusion in each image; and
creating a mosaic image by replacing at least one actual region of occlusion in one image from the set of images with corresponding regions of non-occlusion from at least one other image from the set of images of the scene. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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12. A system for removing occlusions from a composite image formed from a set of images of a scene, comprising:
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acquiring at least two images of a scene from approximately the same viewpoint;
aligning each of the images to a base image selected from the set of images;
identifying areas of potential occlusion in each of the aligned images;
selecting a seed image from the set of images;
determining whether each area of potential occlusion in the seed image is an actual area of occlusion by examining each area of potential occlusion in the seed image to determine whether a level of discontinuity along an outer edge of each area of discontinuity exceeds a predetermined threshold;
replacing areas of actual occlusion in the seed image with corresponding non-occluded areas from one of the other images in the set to form a composite image from the seed image. - View Dependent Claims (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A computer-implemented process for removing occlusions from a mosaic image created from a set of images of a scene, comprising:
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inputting a set of two or more images of a scene;
aligning each of the images to a base image selected from the set of images;
comparing each of the aligned images to identify areas of potential occlusion in each of the aligned images;
determining a level of discontinuity along an outer edge of each area of potential occlusion for each image, said level of discontinuity indicating an area of actual occlusion where the level of discontinuity exceeds a predetermined discontinuity threshold, and said level of discontinuity indicating an area of non-occlusion where the level of discontinuity is less than the predetermined discontinuity threshold;
creating an image mask for each image, said image masks indicating areas of occlusion and areas of non-occlusion for each image; and
using the image mask for each image for creating a mosaic image by replacing areas of actual occlusion in one of the images with corresponding areas of non-occlusion from one of the other images. - View Dependent Claims (22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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Specification