Super-Resolved Free-Viewpoint Image Synthesis Using Semi-global Depth Estimation and Depth-Reliability-Based Regularization

• Published in: Advances in Image and Video Technology Vol. 7087; pp. 22 - 35
• Main Authors: Takahashi, Keita, Naemura, Takeshi
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2011; Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science
• Subjects: depth reliability; free-viewpoint image; regularization; semi-global stereo; super-resolution
• ISBN: 9783642253669; 3642253660
• ISSN: 0302-9743; 1611-3349
• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-25367-6_3

A method for synthesizing high-quality free-viewpoint images from a set of multi-view images is presented. First, an accurate depth map is estimated from a given target viewpoint using modified semi-global stereo matching. Then, a high-resolution image from that viewpoint is obtained through super-resolution reconstruction. The depth estimation results from the first step are used for the second step. First, the depth values are used to associate pixels between the input images and the latent high-resolution image. Second, the pixel-wise reliabilities of the depth information are used for regularization to adaptively control the strength of the super-resolution reconstruction. Experimental results using real images showed the effectiveness of our method.