The present invention is useful in taking a visible light image for identification and other purposes without the requirement of a photobooth, regardless of the background of the visible light image. The original background of the visible light image is replaced with a preselected background. Two IR images with different intensities of IR illumination in the foreground and background regions of the scene, respectively, are compared to produce a difference image of light intensity differences between corresponding pixels of the two images. A binarized image is generated by binarizing the difference image with respect to a predetermined threshold value Phi. A connectivity constraint is used to generate a binary mask from the binarized image, then a gray-scale mask is produced by multiplying the binary mask times a preselected modulation function of the difference image. Warping the gray-scale mask produces a transformed mask. Finally, the background replaced visible light image is generated by blending the transformed mask with the visible light image, and resplacing the original background with the preselected background.
%0 Generic
%1 yang1999method
%A Yang, Yibing
%A Bowman, John C.
%A Hajjahmad, Ibrahim
%D 1999
%I US Patent
%K keying segmentation studio virtual
%N 5,923,380
%T Method for replacing the background of an image
%X The present invention is useful in taking a visible light image for identification and other purposes without the requirement of a photobooth, regardless of the background of the visible light image. The original background of the visible light image is replaced with a preselected background. Two IR images with different intensities of IR illumination in the foreground and background regions of the scene, respectively, are compared to produce a difference image of light intensity differences between corresponding pixels of the two images. A binarized image is generated by binarizing the difference image with respect to a predetermined threshold value Phi. A connectivity constraint is used to generate a binary mask from the binarized image, then a gray-scale mask is produced by multiplying the binary mask times a preselected modulation function of the difference image. Warping the gray-scale mask produces a transformed mask. Finally, the background replaced visible light image is generated by blending the transformed mask with the visible light image, and resplacing the original background with the preselected background.
@patent{yang1999method,
abstract = {The present invention is useful in taking a visible light image for identification and other purposes without the requirement of a photobooth, regardless of the background of the visible light image. The original background of the visible light image is replaced with a preselected background. Two IR images with different intensities of IR illumination in the foreground and background regions of the scene, respectively, are compared to produce a difference image of light intensity differences between corresponding pixels of the two images. A binarized image is generated by binarizing the difference image with respect to a predetermined threshold value Phi. A connectivity constraint is used to generate a binary mask from the binarized image, then a gray-scale mask is produced by multiplying the binary mask times a preselected modulation function of the difference image. Warping the gray-scale mask produces a transformed mask. Finally, the background replaced visible light image is generated by blending the transformed mask with the visible light image, and resplacing the original background with the preselected background.},
added-at = {2012-01-04T16:29:02.000+0100},
author = {Yang, Yibing and Bowman, John C. and Hajjahmad, Ibrahim},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2e3bdb35c2206f923f9c8893fb96be4d4/vonolfen},
day = 13,
institution = {Polaroid Corporation},
interhash = {2070de802c0b2e81b71419a5227acacd},
intrahash = {e3bdb35c2206f923f9c8893fb96be4d4},
keywords = {keying segmentation studio virtual},
month = jul,
number = {5,923,380},
publisher = {US Patent},
timestamp = {2012-01-04T16:29:02.000+0100},
title = {Method for replacing the background of an image},
year = 1999
}