Improved Uncalibrated View Synthesis by Extended Positioning of Virtual Cameras and Image Quality Optimization

Abstract

Although there exist numerous view synthesis procedures, they are all restricted to certain special cases. Some procedures for instance can only handle a calibrated camera set while others are limited to interpolation between the reference views. In this paper we will present a fully automated uncalibrated view synthesis procedure. It allows an arbitrary camera placement in 3-D space on the basis of only two input images with a natural camera orientation. Natural camera orientation means that the focus of the virtual camera is intrinsically given by the geodesic which again is determined by the reference views. The presented procedure extends an existing view synthesis algorithm that allows only a camera placement on the 1-D geodesic (in the case of two reference views). The extensions are an additional camera placement along and orthogonally to the line of sight. The image quality of the virtual views will also be enhanced by utilizing the image information of both reference views.