US 2010/0302376 A1Published application

System and method for high-quality real-time foreground/background separation in tele-conferencing using self-registered color/infrared input images and closed-form natural image matting techniques

OwnerPierre Benoit Boulanger, Yilei Zhanginventors

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Abstract

An apparatus and method is provided for near real-time, bi-layer segmentation of foreground and background portions of an image using the color and infrared images of the image. The method includes illuminating an object with infrared and visible light to produce infrared and color images of the object. An infrared mask is produced from the infrared image to predict the foreground and background portions of the image. A trimap is produced from the color image to define the color image into three distinct regions. A closed-form natural image matting algorithm is applied to the images to determine the foreground and background portions of the image.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A system for the near real-time separation of foreground and background images of an object illuminated with visible light, comprising:

a) an infrared (“IR”) light source configured to illuminate the object with IR light, the object located in a foreground portion of an image, the image further comprising a background portion;
b) a color camera configured to produce a color video signal;
c) an IR camera configured to produce an infrared video signal;
d) a beam splitter operatively coupled to the color camera and to the IR camera whereby a first portion of light reflecting off of the object passes through the beam splitter to the color camera, and a second portion of light reflecting off of the object reflects off of the beam splitter to the IR camera;
e) an interference filter operatively disposed between the beam splitter and the IR camera, the interference filter configured to allow IR light to pass through to the IR camera;
and
f) a video processor operatively coupled to the color camera and to the IR camera and configured to receive the color video signal and the IR video signal, the video processor further comprising video processing means for processing the color and IR video signals to separate the foreground portion of the image from the background portion of the image and to produce an output video signal that contains only the foreground portion of the image.

4 more elements

A method for the near real-time separation of foreground and background images of an object illuminated with visible light, the method comprising the steps of:

a) illuminating the object with infrared (“IR”) light;
b) producing a color video image of the object, the color video image further comprising a color foreground portion and a color background portion;
c) producing an IR video image of the object, the IR video image further comprising an IR foreground portion and an IR background portion;
d) producing a refined trimap from the color video image and the IR video image, the refined trimap defining a trimap image of the object further comprised of a foreground portion, a background portion and an unknown portion;
e) producing an alpha matte from the color video image and the refined trimap;
and
f) separating the color foreground portion from the color background portion of the color video image by applying the alpha matte to the color video image.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/727,654Filed 19 Mar 2010
Priority: 27 May 2009
Published: 2 Dec 2010
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification19 codes

G06T 7/11
Segmentation; Edge detection: region-based segmentation
G06T 7/136
Segmentation; Edge detection: involving thresholding
G06T 7/174
Segmentation; Edge detection: involving the use of two or more images
G06T 7/187
Segmentation; Edge detection: involving region growing; involving region merging; involving connected component labelling