Live User-guided Intrinsic Video For Static Scenes

We present a novel real-time approach for user-guided intrinsic decomposition of static scenes captured by an RGB-D sensor. In the first step, we acquire a three-dimensional representation of the scene using a dense volumetric reconstruction framework. The obtained reconstruction serves as a proxy to densely fuse reflectance estimates and to store user-provided constraints in three-dimensional space. User constraints, in the form of constant shading and reflectance strokes, can be placed directly on the real-world geometry using an intuitive touch-based interaction metaphor, or using interactive mouse strokes. Fusing the decomposition results and constraints in three-dimensional space allows for robust propagation of this information to novel views by re-projection.We leverage this information to improve on the decomposition quality of existing intrinsic video decomposition techniques by further constraining the ill-posed decomposition problem. In addition to improved decomposition quality, we show a variety of live augmented reality applications such as recoloring of objects, relighting of scenes and editing of material appearance

A Novel Framework for Highlight Reflectance Transformation Imaging

We propose a novel pipeline and related software tools for processing the multi-light image collections (MLICs) acquired in different application contexts to obtain shape and appearance information of captured surfaces, as well as to derive compact relightable representations of them. Our pipeline extends the popular Highlight Reflectance Transformation Imaging (H-RTI) framework, which is widely used in the Cultural Heritage domain. We support, in particular, perspective camera modeling, per-pixel interpolated light direction estimation, as well as light normalization correcting vignetting and uneven non-directional illumination. Furthermore, we propose two novel easy-to-use software tools to simplify all processing steps. The tools, in addition to support easy processing and encoding of pixel data, implement a variety of visualizations, as well as multiple reflectance-model-fitting options. Experimental tests on synthetic and real-world MLICs demonstrate the usefulness of the novel algorithmic framework and the potential benefits of the proposed tools for end-user applications.Terms: "European Union (EU)" & "Horizon 2020" / Action: H2020-EU.3.6.3. - Reflective societies - cultural heritage and European identity / Acronym: Scan4Reco / Grant number: 665091DSURF project (PRIN 2015) funded by the Italian Ministry of University and ResearchSardinian Regional Authorities under projects VIGEC and Vis&VideoLa

Depth Super-Resolution Meets Uncalibrated Photometric Stereo

A novel depth super-resolution approach for RGB-D sensors is presented. It disambiguates depth super-resolution through high-resolution photometric clues and, symmetrically, it disambiguates uncalibrated photometric stereo through low-resolution depth cues. To this end, an RGB-D sequence is acquired from the same viewing angle, while illuminating the scene from various uncalibrated directions. This sequence is handled by a variational framework which fits high-resolution shape and reflectance, as well as lighting, to both the low-resolution depth measurements and the high-resolution RGB ones. The key novelty consists in a new PDE-based photometric stereo regularizer which implicitly ensures surface regularity. This allows to carry out depth super-resolution in a purely data-driven manner, without the need for any ad-hoc prior or material calibration. Real-world experiments are carried out using an out-of-the-box RGB-D sensor and a hand-held LED light source.Comment: International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV) Workshop, 201

Image-based rendering and synthesis

Multiview imaging (MVI) is currently the focus of some research as it has a wide range of applications and opens up research in other topics and applications, including virtual view synthesis for three-dimensional (3D) television (3DTV) and entertainment. However, a large amount of storage is needed by multiview systems and are difficult to construct. The concept behind allowing 3D scenes and objects to be visualized in a realistic way without full 3D model reconstruction is image-based rendering (IBR). Using images as the primary substrate, IBR has many potential applications including for video games, virtual travel and others. The technique creates new views of scenes which are reconstructed from a collection of densely sampled images or videos. The IBR concept has different classification such as knowing 3D models and the lighting conditions and be rendered using conventional graphic techniques. Another is lightfield or lumigraph rendering which depends on dense sampling with no or very little geometry for rendering without recovering the exact 3D-models.published_or_final_versio

Self-supervised Outdoor Scene Relighting

Outdoor scene relighting is a challenging problem that requires good understanding of the scene geometry, illumination and albedo. Current techniques are completely supervised, requiring high quality synthetic renderings to train a solution. Such renderings are synthesized using priors learned from limited data. In contrast, we propose a self-supervised approach for relighting. Our approach is trained only on corpora of images collected from the internet without any user-supervision. This virtually endless source of training data allows training a general relighting solution. Our approach first decomposes an image into its albedo, geometry and illumination. A novel relighting is then produced by modifying the illumination parameters. Our solution capture shadow using a dedicated shadow prediction map, and does not rely on accurate geometry estimation. We evaluate our technique subjectively and objectively using a new dataset with ground-truth relighting. Results show the ability of our technique to produce photo-realistic and physically plausible results, that generalizes to unseen scenes.Comment: Published in ECCV '20, http://gvv.mpi-inf.mpg.de/projects/SelfRelight

Surface analysis and visualization from multi-light image collections

Multi-Light Image Collections (MLICs) are stacks of photos of a scene acquired with a fixed viewpoint and a varying surface illumination that provides large amounts of visual and geometric information. Over the last decades, a wide variety of methods have been devised to extract information from MLICs and have shown its use in different application domains to support daily activities. In this thesis, we present methods that leverage a MLICs for surface analysis and visualization. First, we provide background information: acquisition setup, light calibration and application areas where MLICs have been successfully used for the research of daily analysis work. Following, we discuss the use of MLIC for surface visualization and analysis and available tools used to support the analysis. Here, we discuss methods that strive to support the direct exploration of the captured MLIC, methods that generate relightable models from MLIC, non-photorealistic visualization methods that rely on MLIC, methods that estimate normal map from MLIC and we point out visualization tools used to do MLIC analysis. In chapter 3 we propose novel benchmark datasets (RealRTI, SynthRTI and SynthPS) that can be used to evaluate algorithms that rely on MLIC and discusses available benchmark for validation of photometric algorithms that can be also used to validate other MLIC-based algorithms. In chapter 4, we evaluate the performance of different photometric stereo algorithms using SynthPS for cultural heritage applications. RealRTI and SynthRTI have been used to evaluate the performance of (Neural)RTI method. Then, in chapter 5, we present a neural network-based RTI method, aka NeuralRTI, a framework for pixel-based encoding and relighting of RTI data. In this method using a simple autoencoder architecture, we show that it is possible to obtain a highly compressed representation that better preserves the original information and provides increased quality of virtual images relighted from novel directions, particularly in the case of challenging glossy materials. Finally, in chapter 6, we present a method for the detection of crack on the surface of paintings from multi-light image acquisitions and that can be used as well on single images and conclude our presentation

State of the Art on Neural Rendering

Efficient rendering of photo-realistic virtual worlds is a long standing effort of computer graphics. Modern graphics techniques have succeeded in synthesizing photo-realistic images from hand-crafted scene representations. However, the automatic generation of shape, materials, lighting, and other aspects of scenes remains a challenging problem that, if solved, would make photo-realistic computer graphics more widely accessible. Concurrently, progress in computer vision and machine learning have given rise to a new approach to image synthesis and editing, namely deep generative models. Neural rendering is a new and rapidly emerging field that combines generative machine learning techniques with physical knowledge from computer graphics, e.g., by the integration of differentiable rendering into network training. With a plethora of applications in computer graphics and vision, neural rendering is poised to become a new area in the graphics community, yet no survey of this emerging field exists. This state-of-the-art report summarizes the recent trends and applications of neural rendering. We focus on approaches that combine classic computer graphics techniques with deep generative models to obtain controllable and photo-realistic outputs. Starting with an overview of the underlying computer graphics and machine learning concepts, we discuss critical aspects of neural rendering approaches. This state-of-the-art report is focused on the many important use cases for the described algorithms such as novel view synthesis, semantic photo manipulation, facial and body reenactment, relighting, free-viewpoint video, and the creation of photo-realistic avatars for virtual and augmented reality telepresence. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of the social implications of such technology and investigate open research problems