Using Photographs To Enhance Videos

seussman71 writes with a link to some very interesting research out of the University of Washington that employs "a method of using high quality photographs to enhance a video taken of the same subject. The project page gives a good overview of what they are doing and the video on the page gives some really nice examples of how their technology works. Hopefully someone can take the technology and run with it, but one thing's for sure: this could make amateur video-making look even better than it does now." And if adding mustaches would improve your opinion of the people in amateur videos, check out the unwrap-mosaics technique from Microsoft Research.

Comments

Is anyone else sick of demos?

[QuantumG]

Why is UW not releasing their source code? If they intend to spin off commercial products, why are they releasing demos? Hell, even *Microsoft* is releasing demos of this stuff.. is Apple and Google the only companies that can ship product these days (even if it is "beta" you can at least freakin' use it).

No more demos. We know you're smart, now make something useful please.

Re:Is anyone else sick of demos?

[imsabbel]

Simple reason:
They _say_ that it does this automatically.

Translation: We put some phd student on it who spend some months optimizing the settings for the 2 selected scenes so we can make a nice publication and maybe get more money.

If you just look at their steps of the workflow, the way they discribe it just isnt possible (like the way they "stereoscopically" create a depth-map from a _single_ still photograph..).
Not to mention that the first scene looks like a bad video game level after their "improvement".

Re:Is anyone else sick of demos?

[CaptainPatent]

like the way they "stereoscopically" create a depth-map from a _single_ still photograph.

No no no, read the fine print

Stereocycloptically, not stereoscopically!

Re:Is anyone else sick of demos?

[mo]

like the way they "stereoscopically" create a depth-map from a _single_ still photograph

TFV said they were using video frames to do stereoscopic depth-mapping. Since the source footage changed perspective, they can build a depth map based on the relative shift of each object in the video, and then project the high-quality photograph on top of the derived 3D structure

3D models from videos

[4D6963]

The other cool part of it is that it derives a cloud of points from the video, meaning it can turn a video into a 3D model, apparently. However it seems like their program only uses it internally.

Re:3D models from videos

[samkass]

Takeo Kanade's lab at Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute did this in the mid 90's...

Patent Encumbered?

[reality-bytes]

I always get this feeling when I see a university-styled promotional release that the *software* patents are already pending.

I haven't the time to search just now but I'll bet there's at least one application pertaining to this method which encompasses a hell of a lot more.

Of the two, I find the Microsoft one to be better

[spoco2]

Really, the ability for their software to 'unwrap' a 3D object and allow you to fiddle with it as you wish is very cool.

And not limited to a 'static' scene.

And, really, if you're going to go to the effort of videoing a scene, then photographing the scene, then passing the video and the photos through their software. All to get better exposure and resolution.

Um.

Wouldn't it be a far better cost/effort equation to just buy a better HD camera in the damn first place?

A better use?

[neokushan]

All of these techniques are pretty awesome and will certainly be a boon to home video enthusiasts the world over (plus plenty of commercial places that are on a tight budget), but I've got another idea.

You see it on TV all the time, CCTV footage of robberies and the like, couldn't this technology be used to effectively map out a 3D image of the purpetrator?
I know it wont be perfect and most CCTV is probably too low quality to be used, but it would certainly be pretty cool (and useful) to have a vaugely accurate 3D model of the guy, giving you height, build, etc. and with the help of supplementary images, a really easy way to adjust it's appearance.