System and methods for depth regularization and semiautomatic interactive matting using RGB-D images

An array camera, comprising:

• a plurality of cameras that capture images of a scene from different viewpoints;
• memory containing an image processing pipeline application;
• wherein the image processing pipeline application direct the processor to:
• capture a set of images using a group of cameras from the plurality of cameras;
• receive (i) an image comprising a plurality of pixel color values for pixels in the image and (ii) an initial depth map corresponding to the depths of the pixels within the image, wherein the initial depth map is generated using the set of images;
• and
• regularize the initial depth map into a dense depth map using pixels for which depth is known to estimate depths of pixels for which depth is unknown, wherein regularizing the initial depth map into the dense depth map further comprises:
• performing Laplacian matting to compute a Laplacian L;
• obtain a binary confidence map C that indicates whether a depth at a given pixel is confident, where the confidence map C is obtained by a thresholded gradient of the image;
• wherein the Laplacian matting is optimized by solving a reduced linear system for depth values of pixels that are marked as non-confident based on the confidence map C;
• and
• using the dense depth map to perform image-based rendering.