Panoramic video
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented process for generating a panoramic video of a scene, comprising:
- using a computer to perform the following process actions,acquiring multiple videos of the scene, wherein each of said videos was captured using a separate camera, and wherein said acquiring comprises,employing a camera rig that is capable of recording the videos of the scene, said camera rig comprising multiple video cameras disposed so as to view different portions of the scene which collectively cover a 360 degree view of the scene,setting all the cameras of the camera rig to record mode,deactivating the record mode on all the cameras once sufficient video has been captured by each to ultimately produce the desired length panoramic video, anddetermining the relative frame offsets between all the cameras, wherein the frame offset between any pair of cameras is defined as the number of frames before or after a particular frame number of the video captured by one of the cameras and the frame number of a frame of the video captured by the other camera at approximately the same moment in time;
mosaicing individual frames of the videos which were captured at approximately the same moment in time to form each frame of the panoramic video; and
constructing a series of texture maps for each frame of the panoramic video, each of which coincides with a portion of a prescribed environment model of the scene.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A system and process for generating a panoramic video. Essentially, the panoramic video is created by first acquiring multiple videos of the scene being depicted. Preferably, these videos collectively depict a full 360 degree view of the surrounding scene and are captured using a multiple camera rig. The acquisition phase also includes a calibration procedure that provides information about the camera rig used to capture the videos that is used in the next phase for creating the panoramic video. This next phase, which is referred to as the authoring phase, involves mosaicing or stitching individual frames of the videos, which were captured at approximately the same moment in time, to form each frame of the panoramic video. A series of texture maps are then constructed for each frame of the panoramic video. Each texture map coincides with a portion of a prescribed environment model of the scene. The texture map representations of each frame of the panoramic video are encoded so as to facilitate their transfer and viewing. This can include compressing the panoramic video frames Such a procedure is useful in applications where the panoramic video is to be transferred over a network, such as the Internet.
47 Citations
45 Claims
-
1. A computer-implemented process for generating a panoramic video of a scene, comprising:
-
using a computer to perform the following process actions, acquiring multiple videos of the scene, wherein each of said videos was captured using a separate camera, and wherein said acquiring comprises, employing a camera rig that is capable of recording the videos of the scene, said camera rig comprising multiple video cameras disposed so as to view different portions of the scene which collectively cover a 360 degree view of the scene, setting all the cameras of the camera rig to record mode, deactivating the record mode on all the cameras once sufficient video has been captured by each to ultimately produce the desired length panoramic video, and determining the relative frame offsets between all the cameras, wherein the frame offset between any pair of cameras is defined as the number of frames before or after a particular frame number of the video captured by one of the cameras and the frame number of a frame of the video captured by the other camera at approximately the same moment in time; mosaicing individual frames of the videos which were captured at approximately the same moment in time to form each frame of the panoramic video; and constructing a series of texture maps for each frame of the panoramic video, each of which coincides with a portion of a prescribed environment model of the scene. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
-
18. A system for generating a panoramic video of a surrounding scene, comprising:
-
a camera rig comprising multiple video cameras disposed so as to view different portions of the scene, but wherein the field of view of each camera overlaps that of each adjacent camera; a general purpose computing device; and a computer program comprising program modules executable by the computing device, wherein the computing device is directed by the program modules of the computer program to, input multiple videos of the scene, wherein each of said videos was captured using a separate one of the cameras of the camera rig, determine the relative frame offsets between all the cameras, wherein the frame offset between any pair of cameras is defined as the number of frames before or after a particular frame number of the video captured by one of the cameras and the frame number of a frame of the video captured by the other camera at approximately the same moment in time, mosaic individual frames of the videos which were captured at approximately the same moment in time, as determined using the relative frame offsets between the cameras, to form each frame of the panoramic video, locally warp each mosaiced video frame of each panoramic video frame to reduce any ghosting or blurring in the frame associated with localized mis-registrations, and construct a series of texture maps for each frame of the panoramic video, each of which coincides with a portion of a prescribed environment model of the scene. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37)
-
-
38. A computer-readable storage memory medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon for generating a panoramic video of a scene, said computer-executable instructions comprising:
-
(a) acquiring multiple videos of the scene, wherein each of said videos was captured using a separate camera; (b) selecting one of the videos and choosing a starting frame from the selected video; (c) identifying the corresponding frame in each of the non-selected videos that was captured closest in time to the chosen starting frame, said identifying comprising determining the relative frame offsets between all the cameras, wherein the frame offset between any pair of cameras is defined as the number of frames before or after a particular frame number of the video captured by one of the cameras and the frame number of a frame of the video captured by the other camera at approximately the same moment in time; (d) mosaicing the chosen starting frame and the identified corresponding frames to form the first frame of the panoramic video; (e) locally warping each of the mosaiced video frames to reduce any ghosting or blurring in the first frame of the panoramic video associated with localized mis-registrations; (f) constructing texture maps for the first frame of the panoramic video each of which coincides with a portion of a prescribed environment model of the scene; (g) selecting a frame in one of the videos that was captured immediately after a frame used to form the last-produced frame of the panoramic video; (h) selecting the corresponding frame in each of the other videos that was captured closest in time to the previously selected frame (i) mosaicing the selected frames to form a next frame of the panoramic video; (j) constructing texture maps from the last-formed frame of the panoramic video, each of which coincides with a portion of the prescribed environment model of the scene; and (k) repeating instructions (g) through (j) until either the desired length panoramic video is generated or the last-produced frame of the panoramic video was formed using in part the last frame of one of the videos. - View Dependent Claims (39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45)
-
Specification