Slashdot Mirror
The Nonphotorealistic Camera
An anonymous reader writes "This article on Photo.Net describes a new type of imaging technique that finds depth discontinuities in real-world scenes with multiple flashes added to ordinary digital cameras. As depth discontinuities correspond to real 3D object boundaries, the resulting images look like line drawings. The same technique was used at this year's SIGGRAPH to create a live A-ha 'Take On Me' demo."
Try reading the article, the last 3 images use different techniques and are for comparison. Jeez
This technique sounds like it could be useful for 3d reconstruction problems. The main issue in, for example shape from stereo algorithms is accurately finding depth discontinuities, and it can be nigh on impossible with a textureless, evenly lit surface.
Having said that, I'm not sure whether it would be better than existing solutions for that sort of thing, for example structured light.
Disclaimer: I am not a expert on graphics technology.
But look at the second image in the final set, it's clearly able to detect the edges of things. I'm not even sure what the filter in the last image is for.
And I'm not sure what you mean by "reproducing what can already bt produced". There are other multiple-image processing engines that can do line drawings and even 3d from multiple sources, but the thing is, they all require multiple cameras and calculating the slight offset in objects from different sources.
What's interesting about this new technique is that it uses the shadows from the flashes to determine edges and depth. Doing it entirely with lighting without multiple cameras is a really neat hack, imho.