Method and device for modifying a zone in successive images

Method for modifying the content of a sequence of images of a same shot, representing an evolutionary scene and having a high degree of correlation between successive images of said same shot, the images being represented as a matrix arrangement of pixels, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) identifying a non-deformable target zone to be replaced in the scene by a set of reference marks distributed within said target zone;
• (b) in each current one of said images, searching for said current image and recognizing said set of reference marks in said current image by a pattern recognition process;
• (c) identifying the position and dimensions of said target zone in said current image by referring to said reference marks;
• (d) determining a position, with respect to said reference marks, to give to a pattern superimposable on the target zone, stored in digital form as pixels;
• (e) for each said current image of said sequence, automatically computing a geometrical transformation to be undergone by the pattern to make it match the variable appearance of the target zone by a correlation based on the reference marks, in all successive images of the same shot;
• and
• (f) generating results of steps (d) and (e) as data enabling the substitution of the pixels representative of the pattern in the image for the pixels representative of the target zone.