| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|
| 20080297593 | Rendering for an Interactive 360 Degree Light Field Display - An interactive, autostereoscopic system for displaying an object in 3D includes a mirror configured to spin around a vertical axis when actuated by a motor, a high speed video projector, and a processing system including a graphics card interfaced to the video projector. An anisotropic reflector is bonded onto an inclined surface of the mirror. The video projector projects video signals of the object from the projector onto the inclined surface of the mirror while the mirror is spinning, so that light rays representing the video signals are redirected toward a field of view of a 360 degree range. The processing system renders the redirected light rays so as to interactively generate a horizontal-parallax 3D display of the object. Vertical parallax can be included in the display by adjusting vertically the displayed views of the object, in response to tracking of viewer motion by a tracking system. | 12-04-2008 |
| 20080304081 | Acquisition of Surface Normal Maps from Spherical Gradient Illumination - An apparatus for generating a surface normal map of an object may include a plurality of light sources having intensities that are controllable so as to generate one or more gradient illumination patterns. The light sources are configured and arranged to illuminate the surface of the object with the gradient illumination patterns. A camera may receive light reflected from the illuminated surface of the object, and generate data representative of the reflected light. A processing system may process the data so as to estimate the surface normal map of the surface of the object. A specular normal map and a diffuse normal map of the surface of the object may be generated separately, by placing polarizers on the light sources and in front of the camera so as to illuminate the surface of the object with polarized spherical gradient illumination patterns. | 12-11-2008 |
| 20090195545 | Facial Performance Synthesis Using Deformation Driven Polynomial Displacement Maps - Acquisition, modeling, compression, and synthesis of realistic facial deformations using polynomial displacement maps are described. An analysis phase can be included where the relationship between motion capture markers and detailed facial geometry is inferred. A synthesis phase can be included where detailed animated facial geometry is driven by a sparse set of motion capture markers. For analysis, an actor can be recorded wearing facial markers while performing a set of training expression clips. Real-time high-resolution facial deformations are captured, including dynamic wrinkle and pore detail, using interleaved structured light 3D scanning and photometric stereo. Next, displacements are calculated between a neutral mesh driven by the motion capture markers and the high-resolution captured expressions. These geometric displacements are stored in one or more polynomial displacement maps parameterized according to the local deformations of the motion capture dots. For synthesis, the polynomial displacement maps can be driven with new motion capture data. | 08-06-2009 |
| 20090245691 | ESTIMATING POSE OF PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGES IN 3D EARTH MODEL USING HUMAN ASSISTANCE - The pose of a photographic image of a portion of Earth may be estimated using human assistance. A 3D graphics engine may render a virtual image of Earth from a controllable viewpoint based on 3D data that is representative of a 3D model of at least a portion of Earth. A user may locate and display a corresponding virtual image of Earth at a viewpoint that approximately corresponds to the pose of the photographic image by manipulating user controls. The photographic image and the corresponding virtual image may be overlaid on one another so that both images can be seen at the same time. The user may adjust the pose of one of the images while overlaid on the other image by manipulating user controls so that both images appear to substantially align with one another. The settings of the user controls may be converted to pose data that is representative of the pose of the photographic image within the 3D model. | 10-01-2009 |
| 20090303249 | HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE IMAGE EDITING - A high dynamic range image editing system for editing an image file having pixels spanning a first range of light intensity levels in an image editing system that only displays differences in the light intensity levels of pixels within a second range of light intensity levels that is less than the first range of light intensity levels, without reducing the range of light intensity levels in the image file. | 12-10-2009 |
| 20100328677 | Estimating spectral distribution of reflections from object surface based on low frequency illumination - A system for estimating the specular roughness of points on a surface of an object may include a lighting system, an image capture system and a computer processing system. The lighting system may be configured to illuminate the surface of the object at different times with different illumination patterns. Each illumination pattern may illuminate the surface from a plurality of different directions and form an intensity gradient having an order of no more than two. The image capture system may be configured to capture an image of the surface of the object when illuminated by each of the different illumination patterns at each of the different times. The computer processing system may be configured to compute the specular roughness of each point on the surface of the object based on the images captured by the image capture system. | 12-30-2010 |
| 20120062719 | Head-Mounted Photometric Facial Performance Capture - A camera may capture a sequence of images of a face while the face changes. A camera support may cause the field of view of the camera to remain substantially fixed with respect to the face, notwithstanding movement of the head. A lighting system may light the face from multiple directions. A lighting system support may cause each of the directions of the light from the lighting system to remain substantially fixed with respect to the face, notwithstanding movement of the head. Sequential images of the face may be computed as it changes based on the captured images. Each computed image may include least per-pixel surface normals of the face that are calculated based on multiple, separate images of the face. Each separate image may be representative of the face being lit by the lighting system from a different one of the separate directions. | 03-15-2012 |
