ILLUMINATION CONTROLED AUGMENTED REALITY

J. Stauder, contact: J. Stauder, H. Nicolas

Goal

Augmented reality addresses the insertion of synthetic objects into natural video image sequences. To ensure realism, shading and cast shadows of the synthetic objects should match shading and cast shadows of the natural objects. The resulting video image sequence should be such that synthetic objects seems to be illuminated be the natural scene illumination as the natural objects.

Problem

To reach the goal, the natural scene illumination has to be known.

Approach

Here, the natural scene illumination is described by illumination model. Its parameters are automatically estimated from the natural image sequence [Stau95] [Stau99]. Then, shading of the synthetic objects, cast shadows caused by synthetic objects and cast shadows affecting synthetic objects are generated according to the natural illumination by standard computer graphic tools [CGI'98] [Stau99].

Experimental Results

The results show that the synthetic ball at the right side appears more realistic as in the middle. Further, the cast shadows allows to understand better the balls motion trajectory [CGI'98] [Stau99].

References

[Stau95]

J. Stauder: "Estimation of Point Light Source Parameters For Object-based Coding", Signal Processing: Image Communication, Vol. 7, Nos. 4-6, November 1995, pp. 355-379. (downloadable: draft version)

[CGI'98]

J. Stauder: "Illumination Analysis for Synthetic/Natural Hybrid Image Sequence Generation", Computer Graphics International (CGI 98), Hannover, Germany, 22.-26.6.98.

[Stau99b]

J. Stauder: "Augmented Reality with Automatic Illumination Control Incorporating Ellipsoidal Models", IEEE Trans. on Multi Media, Volume 1, No.2, June 1999 (downloadable: draft version pdf or ps)