Foreground/background segmentation in digital images with differential exposure calculations
AssigneeFotoNation Vision Limited
InventorsEran Steinberg, Yury Prilutsky, Peter Corcoran, Petronel Blgiol
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Abstract
A digital segmentation method and apparatus determines foreground and/or background within at least one portion of a captured image. The determining includes comparing a captured image to a pre-captured or post captured reference image of nominally the same scene. One of the images is taken with flash and the other without. The system can be implemented as part of a digital camera acquisition chain having effective computation complexity.
Claims47
A handheld digital image acquisition system having no photographic film, comprising:
- (a) an apparatus for capturing digital images,
- (b) a flash unit for providing illumination during image capture,
- (c) a processor. and
- (d) a memory having computer-readable code embedded therein for programming the processor to perform a digital segmentation method that comprises:
- determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image,
- (e) wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured in a temporal range between just before and just after exposure of the captured image,
- (f) wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, and
- (g) wherein one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash and the other being taken without flash.
One or more computer-readable storage devices having code embedded therein for programming a processor of a handheld digital image acquisition device to perform a digital segmentation method that comprises:
- determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background legion and a foreground legion, within at least one portion of a captured image,
- wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured in a temporal range between just before and just after exposure of the captured image,
- wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, and
- wherein one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash and the other being taken without flash.
A method of digital segmentation involving a handheld digital image acquisition device, the method comprising:
- using a processor in
- determining one or more regions that are indicative of a foreground region, or of a background region, or of a background region and a foreground region, within at least one portion of a captured image,
- wherein said determining comprises comparing said captured image and a reference image of nominally the same scene captured just before, during, just after or temporally-overlapping exposure of the captured image;
- wherein the comparing comprises spatially aligning one or more regions of the captured and reference images at least in respect of pixels corresponding to the at least one portion of said captured image, and
- wherein one of said captured and reference images being taken with flash and the other being taken without flash.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.