A new approach to virtual mirroring for view integration

Abstract

In this paper, we present an improvement to an image integration technique called Virtual Mirroring (VM). The basis for this approach is formed on the notion that humans are familiar with seeing multiple views of a scene through reflections off various reflective surfaces. VM overlays secondary views of a scene onto virtual mirrors that can be seen by a primary view of the scene, thereby providing more views of a given scene to the observer. We refer to the cameras that capture the secondary and primary views as Secondary (SC) and Principal (PC) Cameras respectively. In our previous approach, the camera setup was constrained to a specific relative position between the cameras. Moreover, the virtual mirrors we created did not respect the laws of reflection. In this new approach, we assume an object plane on the scene in order to be able to determine the world position of each SC image point and subsequently, the corresponding points of reflection through a virtual mirror. By using an object plane, the camera placement is not constrained and the virtual mirrors are created using equations that adhere to the laws of reflection. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.