Detection and Removal of Foreground Objects in Spherical Images for the Synthesis of Photorealistic Intermediate Images

Abstract

A method is proposed for the removal of foreground objects from spherical images as applied to the synthesis of intermediate images. The synthesis procedure is based on a 3D model of the captured scene. As a rule, the objects that appear in the frame but are not fixed in the model are deformed during the synthesis of an intermediate frame, thus making the result unrealistic. The method proposed allows one to remove such objects from the foreground. The method is based on the comparison of two images of the scene taken from close viewpoints and on the redundancy of available information. The method was tested on panoramas and models available in the Google Street View service.