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Video Inpainting Software Deletes People From HD Video Footage
cylonlover writes "In a development sure to send conspiracy theorists into a tizzy, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPII) have developed video inpainting software that can effectively delete people or objects from high-definition footage. The software analyzes each video frame and calculates what pixels should replace a moving area that has been marked for removal. In a world first, the software can compensate for multiple people overlapped by the unwanted element, even if they are walking towards (or away from) the camera."
Researchers have developed video inpainting to remove the character Jar Jar Binks from the Star Wars Prequals.
I liked the fact that you could still see the pedestrians in the reflections of the display window in the video of the musicians, even though they had been erased from the front end. Like the vampire test, but the other way around.
So combine this tech with Google Glass and identify people you just don't want to see ever again, and you may end up walking right into them without even knowing.
You can't handle the truth.
Ten years ago, I predicted a "nudie button," which, instead of removing people from live video, would simply remove their clothing (through interpolation). I do not endorse the use of such a button on your TV's remote control, I merely predict its future existence.
can you guys remove the motorcycle from this picture?
You got that wrong. Now they will say see, we told you this existed. But if this is what they are willing to show us, think how more powerful the government version is that they won't show us? They can remove you from one video walking down the street, and put you in the same scene last week (ATM time stamp) robbing someone!
Memory is deceptive because it is colored by today's events. - Albert Einstein
If we extrapolate this, perhaps we won't be able to trust video as evidence any longer, so there's no reason to have all these surveillance cameras around.
People have been doing this for far more than the last 5 years. It is a trivial application of so-called 'optical flow' where motion vectors are used to identify independently moving objects within a scene.
One interesting application (seen, for instance, in the Will Smith film "I am legend") takes video footage of a real environment, and converts the footage into a virtual static 'texture' for the background elements. Artists can then repaint over this 'texture' to add damage to buildings etc. The new texture can now be reapplied to the original footage, so the moving shot appears to show the artistic changes in visual context. Clearly this method will not stand up to the same scrutiny as remodelling buildings in CGI, and inserting them into a virtual set, but it works well for backgrounds.
Films today frequently use a so-called skybox- a 360 panorama stitched from multiple still photos shot on location. This skybox allows a virtual background to be 'projected' behind the actors (say when they are pretending to be on top of a tall building or mountain) that can track the rotational movement of the camera.
The idea of element extraction forms the basis of various camera enhanced video games found on the current consoles. Usually, the technique is the reverse of the example in the article, where it is the background that is removed so that the player may be isolated and inserted into a virtual scene.
Slashdot needs editors that know something about technology, but that isn't going to happen while the owners of Slashdot use the tech stories to draw readers to the constant anti-Iranian warmongering propaganda that appears here almost daily.
But, then, how is anyone else to know about the dwarf. From the viewer's perspective the dwarf doesn't exist. For that matter, dwarfs might not even exist at all!
If you look at the video, though, the background doesn't have to be static. Objects moving over other moving objects can be removed as well. But, yeah, they have to be visible at some point.
... I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes.
But, then, how is anyone else to know about the dwarf. From the viewer's perspective the dwarf doesn't exist.
I hit a dwarf on the way to work today.
We got out of our cars to exchange information.
He said, "I am not happy."
I asked, "Which one are you?"
Then the fight started.
Background has to be static for it to work.
Nope
Absolutely false. Check the Pax Planck page.
Not sure if you're making fun of conspiracy theorists or making fun of people who call others conspiracy theorists?
What you describe was put into law by the 2012 NDAA. There isn't even a "judge" required.
Government says: "You're a terrorist!" The evidence is secret so you have no right to examine or challenge it. You have no right to legal counsel, no right to ever see a judge or jury, and it's off to prison you go for as long as the government says. Or maybe they just kill you, which they also claim the power to do.
Anyone reminded of the Laughing Man from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex?
A hacker who was able to hack the cybernetic vision of others in real-time to make himself invisible...
This is not a Howard Stern reference, it is a Snow White reference.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel