Abstract: An apparatus for performing 3D estimation on the basis of pictures of at least two different views includes a hypotheses provider, a similarity measure calculator, and a 3D information determiner. The hypotheses provider locally determines 3D information hypotheses for positions of a current picture of a first view on the basis of a pre-estimate which associates a 3D information estimate to each position of a picture of the first view. The similarity measure calculator calculates, for each position of the current picture of the first view, a hypotheses of the respective position by measuring a similarity between a region similarity measure for each of the 3D information of the current picture of the first view at the respective position and a corresponding region of a second view at a position displaced relative to the respective position by a respective 3D information hypothesis.

Abstract: An illumination system for illuminating a scene location emits light from a light surface in order to form a keying background for recording the scene location.

Abstract: An apparatus for performing 3D estimation on the basis of pictures of at least two different views includes a hypotheses provider, a similarity measure calculator, and a 3D information determiner. The hypotheses provider locally determines 3D information hypotheses for positions of a current picture of a first view on the basis of a pre-estimate which associates a 3D information estimate to each position of a picture of the first view. The similarity measure calculator calculates, for each position of the current picture of the first view, a hypotheses of the respective position by measuring a similarity between a region similarity measure for each of the 3D information of the current picture of the first view at the respective position and a corresponding region of a second view at a position displaced relative to the respective position by a respective 3D information hypothesis.

Abstract: The present invention discloses a method and an apparatus for fusing a plurality of depth images. The method includes: obtaining N depth images collected by N image collection units, where N?2; obtaining a first foreground pixel of an ith depth image of the N depth images, where i?1 and i?N; obtaining N?1 projected points that correspond to the first foreground pixel and that are in depth images respectively collected by N?1 image collection units; and when depth values of a foreground three-dimensional space point in respective coordinate systems of the N?1 image collection units are greater than or equal to depth values of the respective N?1 projected points corresponding to the first foreground pixel, obtaining a three-dimensional point cloud by means of fusion.

Abstract: The present disclosure provide a video communication method and system, applied to a scenario of video communication between a first location and a second location, and at least two users at the second location participate in the video communication. The method includes: determining a first user and a second user that are in a call or that are going to have a call with each other; obtaining an eye-to-eye virtual view image of the first user; and displaying the eye-to-eye virtual view image of the first user on a display at the second location in a manner used for corresponding to the second user, so that the eye-to-eye virtual view image of the first user corresponds to the second user.

Abstract: A method for generating 3D-information from multiple images showing a 3D scene from multiple perspectives has: providing at least two hypotheses for the 3D-information; performing a multi-hypotheses test by matching the at least two hypotheses to the multiple images and determining a test-result hypothesis that fulfills a particular matching criterion; updating the test-result hypothesis by varying a parameter set of the test-result hypothesis to further improve the matching criterion or another criterion; and determining the 3D-information on the basis of the parameter set of a resulting hypothesis provided by the action of updating the test-result hypothesis. A corresponding computer readable digital storage medium and a 3D-information generator are also described. Further embodiments perform a correspondence analysis between projections of spatio-temporal objects (STO) in multiple images to select a particular spatio-temporal object on the basis of said correspondence analysis.

Abstract: A virtual camera pose determiner is configured to determine a position and an orientation of a virtual camera. The position of the virtual camera is determined on the basis of a display position of a displayed representation of a remote participant on a display. The orientation of the virtual camera is determined on the basis of a geometrical relation between the display position of the remote participant on the display, and a position of a local participant. The virtual camera is configured to transmit an image or a sequence of images to the remote participant, so that an image provided by the virtual camera has the view on the local participant as is if viewed from the display position. Further embodiments provide a video communication system having a virtual camera pose determiner for providing a virtual camera pose on basis of the display position and the position of the local participant.

Abstract: An apparatus for estimating a disparity map based on at least two images is provided. The apparatus includes at least two processing units, which include a pixel recursion unit configured to determine a disparity value as a pixel recursion disparity candidate based on a plurality of pixel values of the at least two images and a selector configured to select a selected disparity candidate to determine at least one of the disparity map values of the disparity map. The selector is adapted to select the selected disparity candidate from a candidate group assigned to the selector. The candidate group assigned to the selector includes the pixel recursion disparity candidate, a second disparity candidate and a third disparity candidate. Moreover, the selector is adapted to select the selected disparity candidate independently from a different selector of a different processing unit of the at least two processing units.

Abstract: A method for generating 3D-information from multiple images showing a 3D scene from multiple perspectives has: providing at least two hypotheses for the 3D-information; performing a multi-hypotheses test by matching the at least two hypotheses to the multiple images and determining a test-result hypothesis that fulfills a particular matching criterion; updating the test-result hypothesis by varying a parameter set of the test-result hypothesis to further improve the matching criterion or another criterion; and determining the 3D-information on the basis of the parameter set of a resulting hypothesis provided by the action of updating the test-result hypothesis. A corresponding computer readable digital storage medium and a 3D-information generator are also described. Further embodiments perform a correspondence analysis between projections of spatio-temporal objects (STO) in multiple images to select a particular spatio-temporal object on the basis of said correspondence analysis.

Abstract: A virtual camera pose determiner is configured to determine a position and an orientation of a virtual camera. The position of the virtual camera is determined on the basis of a display position of a displayed representation of a remote participant on a display. The orientation of the virtual camera is determined on the basis of a geometrical relation between the display position of the remote participant on the display, and a position of a local participant. The virtual camera is configured to transmit an image or a sequence of images to the remote participant, so that an image provided by the virtual camera has the view on the local participant as is if viewed from the display position. Further embodiments provide a video communication system having a virtual camera pose determiner for providing a virtual camera pose on basis of the display position and the position of the local participant.

Abstract: An apparatus for estimating a disparity map based on at least two images is provided. The apparatus includes at least two processing units, which include a pixel recursion unit configured to determine a disparity value as a pixel recursion disparity candidate based on a plurality of pixel values of the at least two images and a selector configured to select a selected disparity candidate to determine at least one of the disparity map values of the disparity map. The selector is adapted to select the selected disparity candidate from a candidate group assigned to the selector. The candidate group assigned to the selector includes the pixel recursion disparity candidate, a second disparity candidate and a third disparity candidate. Moreover, the selector is adapted to select the selected disparity candidate independently from a different selector of a different processing unit of the at least two processing units.

Abstract: During post-processing of video data in a YUV color space it may be necessary, for instance for immersive video conferences, to separate a video object in the image foreground from the known image background. Hitherto, rapid, locally limited deviations in illumination in the actual image to be examined, in particular shadows and brightenings, could not be compensated. The inventive recognition and compensation method, however, can compensate in real time shadows and brightenings, even at great quantities of image data by directly utilizing different properties of the technically based YUV color space. Chrominance, color saturation and color intensity of an actual pixel (P1) are approximated directly from associated YUV values (&agr;, a, b) which leads to the avoidance of time-consuming calculations.

Abstract: A hybrid method using both block recursion and pixel recursion of analyzing in real time the disparity of image characteristics in a pair of two-dimensional stereoscopic images to yield an improved three-dimensional appearance thereof. A scene is recorded by a stereoscopic camera system and its video images are subjected to a disparity analysis. For every pixel, the analysis detects the displacement between individual image characteristics and allows calculation of the motion parallax as it appears to a viewer. The is suitable for implementation with stereoscopic images of any kind and provides for basing the input image data for the block recursion on the left and on the right video image of a stereoscopic image pair and that the parameters of the stereo geometry are inclided in the pixel recursion for satisfying the epipolar condition. The method in accordance with the invention is used without additional aids with motion parallax in any spatial presentations.