Method and system for obtaining visual information from an image sequence using visual tunnel analysis

A method for determining a range of camera poses of a scene, comprising:

• specifying a desired view of the scene;
• obtaining an image sequence of the scene;
• defining a visual tunnel that includes light rays within the image sequence;
• and
• outputting a set of available light rays that determines the range of camera poses that will yield the desired view of the scene.

A method for determining visual information from a collection of light rays, comprising:

• determining an orientation and direction of each light ray within the collection of light rays;.
• generating ray representations by mapping each light ray to a ray representation space;
• defining a visual tunnel in ray representation space that contains the ray representations;
• and
• predicting available views using the ray representations.

A method for planning a camera path that will provide visualization of a desired visibility region, comprising:

• providing a set of known visual primitives, with each known visual primitive having a corresponding camera path;
• decomposing the desired visibility region into known visual primitives;
• and
• determining the camera path based on the decomposition.

A method for processing an image sequence containing at least a portion of a scene along a camera trajectory, comprising:

• defining a visibility space as a space that encapsulates the appearance of the scene in the image sequence at every conceivable camera pose and viewing angle;
• defining a visual tunnel as a volume that is carved in the visibility space;
• and
• encoding at every point in the visibility space available rays within the visual tunnel;
• and
• obtaining visual prediction information from the encoded rays.

A method for planning a camera trajectory to capture a desired visualization of a scene, comprising:

• providing visual tunnel primitives, each of the visual tunnel primitives having an associated camera path;
• determining a combination of the visual tunnel primitives that will minimally circumscribe the desired visualization of the scene;
• and
• determining a camera trajectory from the combination of visual tunnel primitives such that the camera trajectory is a union of the camera paths associated with the combination of visual tunnel primitives and such that the camera trajectory will provide the desired visualization of the scene.