BACKGROUND BLURRING FOR VIDEO CONFERENCING
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented process for blurring the background in an image of an image sequence, comprising using a computer to perform the process actions of:
- (a) dividing an image of an image sequence into pixels;
(b) creating a first probability map of each pixel'"'"'s probability it is background;
(c) using an object detector to find an object in the image and using any found object to determine the probability of each pixel being background thereby creating a second probability map;
(d) specifying that each pixel in the first probability map is not background, if it was determined by the object detector to belong to an object;
(e) combining the first and second probability maps to obtain a combined probability map that defines a probability of each pixel in the image being a background pixel;
(f) determining a blurring radius for each pixel based on its probability of being a background pixel; and
(g) blurring each pixel in the image using the blurring radius for each pixel to create an output image with a blurred background.
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Abstract
Background blurring is an effective way to both preserve privacy and keep communication effective during video conferencing. The present image background blurring technique is a light weight real-time technique to perform background blurring using a fast background modeling procedure combined with an object (e.g., face) detector/tracker. A soft decision is made at each pixel whether it belongs to the foreground or the background based on multiple vision features. The classification results are mapped to a per-pixel blurring radius image to blur the background. In another embodiment, the image background blurring technique blurs the background of the image without using the object detector.
73 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented process for blurring the background in an image of an image sequence, comprising using a computer to perform the process actions of:
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(a) dividing an image of an image sequence into pixels; (b) creating a first probability map of each pixel'"'"'s probability it is background; (c) using an object detector to find an object in the image and using any found object to determine the probability of each pixel being background thereby creating a second probability map; (d) specifying that each pixel in the first probability map is not background, if it was determined by the object detector to belong to an object; (e) combining the first and second probability maps to obtain a combined probability map that defines a probability of each pixel in the image being a background pixel; (f) determining a blurring radius for each pixel based on its probability of being a background pixel; and (g) blurring each pixel in the image using the blurring radius for each pixel to create an output image with a blurred background. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A system for blurring the background in an image, comprising:
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a general purpose computing device; a computer program comprising program modules executable by the general purpose computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to, divide an input image into pixels; perform background modeling to determine a first probability map that each pixel in the image is background; perform object detection to find an object and specify that pixels of any object detected are not background pixels to create a second probability map that each pixel in the image is background; perform image background blurring using the first and second probability maps that each pixel in the image is background to create an image with a blurred background. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17)
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18. A computer-implemented process for blurring the background in an image of an image sequence, comprising:
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inputting an image divided into pixels; performing foreground/background modeling to determine the probability of each pixel in the image being foreground or background; using the probability that each pixel is foreground or background to blur background pixels in the image. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20)
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Specification