Fusion of Kinect depth data with trifocal disparity estimation for near real-time high quality depth maps generation

Generating depth maps along with video streams is valuable for Cinema and Television production. Thanks to the improvements of depth acquisition systems, the challenge of fusion between depth sensing and disparity estimation is widely investigated in computer vision. This paper presents a new framework for generating depth maps from a rig made of a professional camera with two satellite cameras and a Kinect device. A new disparity-based calibration method is proposed so that registered Kinect depth samples become perfectly consistent with disparities estimated between rectified views. Also, a new hierarchical fusion approach is proposed for combining on the flow depth sensing and disparity estimation in order to circumvent their respective weaknesses. Depth is determined by minimizing a global energy criterion that takes into account the matching reliability and the consistency with the Kinect input. Thus generated depth maps are relevant both in uniform and textured areas, without holes due to occlusions or structured light shadows. Our GPU implementation reaches 20fps for generating quarter-pel accurate HD720p depth maps along with main view, which is close to real-time performances for video applications. The estimated depth is high quality and suitable for 3D reconstruction or virtual view synthesis.

Fusion of Kinect depth data with trifocal disparity estimation for near real-time high quality depth maps generation“, G. Boisson, P. Kerbiriou, V. Drazic, O. Bureller, N. Sabater, A. Schubert. Proc. SPIE 9011, Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXV, 90110J. IS&T/SPIE Electronic Imaging, 2014.

A real-time 3D multi-view rendering from a real-time 3D capture

As often declared by customers, wearing glasses is a clear limiting factor for 3D adoption in the home. Auto-stereoscopic systems bring an interesting answer to this issue. These systems are evolving very fast providing improved picture quality. Nevertheless, they require adapted content which are today highly demanding in term of computation power. The system we describe here is able to generate in real-time adapted content to these displays: from a real-time stereo capture up to a real-time multi-view rendering. A GPU-based solution is proposed that ensures a real-time processing of both disparity estimation and multi-view rendering on the same platform.

“A real-time 3D multi-view rendering from a real-time 3D capture”, D. Doyen, S. Thiebaud, V. Drazic, C. Thébault. Vol. 44, N°. 1 July, 578-581, SID 2013