KEYWORDS: 3D printing, Thermography, Fabrication, Lamps, 3D modeling, Digital watermarking, Thermal modeling, 3D image processing, Information security, Photography
This paper presents a technique that can non-destructively read out information embedded inside real objects by using far-infrared-light. We propose a technique that can protect the copyrights of digital content for homemade products using digital fabrication technologies such as those used in 3D printers. It embeds information on copyrights inside real objects produced by 3D printers by forming fine structures inside the objects as a watermark that cannot be observed from the outside. Fine structures are formed near the surface inside real objects when they are being fabricated. Information embedded inside real objects needs to be read out non-destructively. We used a technique that could non-destructively read out information from inside real objects by using far-infrared light. We conducted experiments where we structured fine cavities inside objects. The disposition of the fine domain contained valuable information. We used the flat and curved surfaces of the objects to identify them. The results obtained from the experiments demonstrated that the disposition patterns of the fine structures appeared on the surface of objects as a temperature profile when far-infrared light was irradiated on their surface. Embedded information could be read out successfully by analyzing the temperature profile images of the surface of the objects that were captured with thermography and these results demonstrated the feasibility of the technique we propose.
We propose a new technology that can be used to invisibly embed information into the images of real objects that are captured with a video camera. This technique uses illumination that invisibly contains certain information. Because the illumination on a real object contains information, an image of the object taken with a video camera also contains information although it cannot be seen in the captured image. This information can be extracted by image processing. It uses temporally luminance modulated patterns as invisible information. The amplitude of the modulation is too small to perceive. The frequency of modulation is the same as the frame frequency of the projector that is used as a lighting device. The frame images over a certain period are added up after the sign of the even- or odd-numbered frames is changed. Changes in brightness by modulation in each frame are accumulated over the frames. However, the object and background image are removed because the even and odd frames are opposite in sign. As a result, the patterns become visible. We conducted experiments and the results from these revealed that invisible patterns could be read out. Moreover, we evaluated the invisibility of the embedded patterns and confirmed that conditions existed where both the invisibility and readability of the patterns were simultaneously satisfied.
We propose a new technology of optical watermarking that uses a one-dimensional high-frequency pattern to protect the portrait rights of three-dimensional (3-D) shaped real objects by preventing the use of images captured illegally with cameras. We conduct experiments using human faces as real 3-D objects assuming that this technology would be applied to human faces to protect their portrait rights. We utilize the phase difference between two color component patterns, i.e., binary information was expressed if the phase of the high-frequency pattern was the same or opposite. The experimental results demonstrate that this technique was robust against the pattern being deformed due to the curved surface of the 3-D shaped object, and the highest degree of accuracy of 100% in reading out the embedded data was possible by optimizing the conditions under which data were embedded. As a result, we can confirm that the technique we propose is feasible.
We examined what effect the reaching distance had on the prediction of a visually perceived location using reaching
action. A system presenting a virtual object must execute the process of interaction when a body is directly at the
visually perceived location of the virtual object to enable direct interaction between an observer's body and the virtual
object. Conventional techniques assume that the visually perceived location is the same as the location defined by
binocular disparity. However, both locations are often different. We proposed a new technique in our previous studies to
predict the visually perceived location using an observer's action. We also demonstrated prediction using an action where
an observer reached out to a virtual object. This study was an examination into the range of applications of our proposed
approach. An observer in an experiment reached out to a virtual object, and the reaching distance was the experimental
variable. The results did not support the effect of the reaching distance on prediction. We demonstrated that our
technique could be applied to a wide range of reaching distances.
KEYWORDS: Projection systems, Cameras, 3D image processing, Digital cameras, Digital Light Processing, Modulation, Image processing, Photography, Feature extraction, 3D displays
We present a new technique for capturing images where depth information on an object is invisibly and simultaneously
embedded in its 2-D image when its image is taken with a camera. An object is illuminated by light that contains
invisible information whose characteristics change depending on depth; therefore, the images of objects captured with a
camera also invisibly contain such information. This invisible information on depth can be extracted by appropriate
image processing from the captured image of the object. Images taken with this technique can be treated as conventional
2-D images because the image format is for conventional 2-D images. 3-D images can also be constructed by abstracting
depth information embedded in the image. We carried out experiments including a subjective test and confirmed that the
projected pattern could be embedded in the captured image invisibly and its frequency component, from which the depth
information on the object can be obtained, could be read out from the captured image. Moreover, we demonstrate that the
depth map on a captured image of a practical scene can be obtained using this frequency component although it can now
only be applied to scenes with simple configurations such as foregrounds and backgrounds.
We describe a 3-D display that can express differences between depths at extended distances of over tens of meters using
an optical system consisting of a compact LCD, convex lens, and beam splitter for car-navigation applications. It uses
motion parallax to perceive depth because binocular parallax does not work at long distances. In motion parallax, when
an observer is moving toward an object, the rate at which the size of the image is expanded on his or her retina over time
depends on the depth of the object. Therefore, the perceived depth of the image is expected to be controlled by changing
the rate at which its size is expanded, irrespective of its real depth. The results of a subjective test using a moving car in
which observers viewed an expanding test pattern seen ahead through its windshield demonstrated that the perceived
depth could be changed by changing the rate at which the test pattern was expanded and this agreed well with the
theoretically expected depth over 30 km/h or at 40 m depth. Consequently, we demonstrated that our 3-D display could
express differences between depths at extended distances to meet the requirements for car-navigation applications.
We describe a new type of depth-fused 3-D (DFD) perception that occurs when watching a display system that uses two stereoscopic displays instead of two 2-D displays in a conventional DFD display. Subjective tests for this display revealed that two 3-D images of the same shape displayed by the two stereoscopic displays were fused into one 3-D image when they were viewed as overlapping as in a conventional DFD display in which two 2-D images are fused. The perceived depth of the fused 3-D image depends on both the luminance ratio of the two 3-D images and their depth specified by binocular disparity. This result demonstrates that DFD perception is dominated by the effects of binocular disparity and image intensity, i.e., the effect of the depth of focus is much weaker.
KEYWORDS: 3D image processing, 3D displays, Stereoscopic displays, 3D modeling, Linear filtering, Visual system, Image fusion, Eye models, Visual process modeling, Displays
We studied a new 3-D display that uses two stereoscopic displays instead of two 2-D displays in a depth-fused 3D display. We found that two 3-D images with the same shape displayed at different depths by the two stereoscopic displays were fused into one 3-D image when they were viewed as overlapping. Moreover, we found that the perceived depth of the fused 3-D image depends on both the luminance ratio of the two 3-D images and their original perceived depth. This paper presents the simulation results for the perceived depth of the fused 3-D image on the new 3-D display. We applied a model in which the human visual system uses a low-pass filter to perceive the fused image, the same as that used for a conventional DFD display. The simulation results revealed that the perceived depth of the fused image changed depending on both the luminance ratio of the two 3-D images and their original perceived depth, as in the subjective test results, and the low-pass filter model accurately presented the perception of a 3-D image on our 3-D display.
KEYWORDS: 3D image processing, 3D displays, Cameras, Video, Image quality, Stereoscopic displays, Internet, Image processing, 3D video streaming, Local area networks
This paper presents a technique to display real-time 3-D images captured by web cameras on the stereoscopic display of a personal computer (PC) using screen pixel access. Images captured by two side-by-side web cameras are sent through the Internet to a PC and displayed in two conventional viewers for moving images. These processes are carried out independently for the two cameras. The image data displayed in the viewer are in the video memory of the PC. Our method uses this video-memory data, i.e., the two web-camera images are read from the video memory, they are composed as a 3-D image, and then it is written in the video memory again. A 3-D image can be seen if the PC being used has a 3-D display. We developed an experimental system to evaluate the feasibility of this technique. The web cameras captured up to 640 × 480 pixels of an image, compressed it with motion JPEG, and then sent it over a LAN. Using an experimental system, we evaluated that the 3-D image had almost the same quality as a conventional TV image by using a broadband network like ADSL.
KEYWORDS: Image compression, Quantization, 3D image processing, 3D displays, Data compression, LCDs, Data storage, Data communications, Human vision and color perception, Visual system
A depth-fused three dimensional (DFD) display composed of two two-dimensional (2-D) images displayed at different depths enables an observer to perceive a three dimensional image without the assistance of extra equipment. The original data for the display are a 2-D image and a depth map of objects. The two 2-D images are formed by dividing the luminance of a 2-D image of objects between the two 2-D images according to the depth data of the objects. This paper presents the effect of compressing the depth map on a DFD image. The results of subjective evaluations of still pictures using JPEG revealed that compression noises appearing on the decoded image appeared as position errors in depth on the DFD image; however, less data are possible for the depth map data than for a conventional 2-D image. This means that compressing the depth map is advantageous when transmitting a DFD image.
KEYWORDS: Image compression, 3D displays, Quantization, 3D image processing, Image transmission, Image quality, Image storage, Data storage, LCDs, Data communications
A depth-fused 3-D (DFD) display, which is composed of two 2-D images displayed at different depths, is a new 3-D display proposed recently and enables an observer using no extra equipment to perceive an apparent 3-D image. The original data for it are a 2-D image of objects and a depth map image of objects. The two 2-D images are formed by dividing the luminance of an original 2-D image between the two 2-D images according to a depth data of objects at each pixel. This paper presents the effect of the compression of the depth map image on a DFD image. We studied on still pictures using JPEG as an algorithm for compression. After decoding the depth map image, 3-D images were displayed forming the two 2-D images. The main result obtained from subjective evaluations is that the effect of the compression noises appearing on its decoded image appears as errors of position in depth on DFD image, however, a higher compression rate is possible for depth map image than for conventional 2-D image. This result shows that is is advantageous to transmit or store the original data before forming the two 2-D images.
A motion image acquisition technique that enhances resolution by combining periodic position-shifting of the CCD sensor with motion adaptive processing is described. The technique is applied in a prototype system that employs an HDTV CCD sensor that is shifted alternately by half a pixel pitch in the horizontal and vertical directions in synchrony with the frame frequency. The series of four frame images so obtained is integrated into one image as an output frame image for each frame. The resolution is enhanced by this integration, but this technique is not effective for moving regions because of image lag. Therefore, moving regions are reproduced by using only the latest frame image. Still and moving regions are synthesized using the movement coefficient derived from the frame difference signal over the past four frames. The resolution of the moving region is half that of the still region. However, this difference in resolution cannot be perceived clearly because the resolving power of the human eye is low for a moving region. An evaluation of the prototype system confirmed that this technique enhances the resolution in both the vertical and horizontal directions, and that high-quality images far superior to HDTV can be output.
This paper describes image reading technique using multi area sensors for building a high- speed full color still image reader. An experimental system has been created using four CCD imagers which are located symmetrically on the optical axis and optically coupled to the same lens. To produce four images at each surface of the imagers, a pyramidal mirror is placed between the lens and its focal plane. Each CCD sensor reads a quarter section of the original image, and the four images are combined into one image like the original by signal processing. Image discontinuity, which is caused by the differences in characteristics among the CCD imagers, can be decreased below the perception of the human eye by signal correction processing and the read image can be output as a seamless image.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.