• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.1175-1184
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• 2015

A depth map is an image which contains 3D distance information. Generally, it is difficult to acquire a high resolution (HD), noise-removed, good quality depth map directly from the camera. Therefore, many researches have been focused on acquisition of the high resolution and the good quality depth map by up-sampling and pre/post image processing of the low resolution depth map. However, many researches are lack of effective up-sampling for the edge region which has huge impact on image perceptual-quality. In this paper, we propose an up-sampling method, based on joint bilateral filter, which improves up-sampling of the edge region and visual quality of synthetic images by adopting different weights for the edge parts that is sensitive to human perception characteristics. The proposed method has gains in terms of PSNR and subjective video quality compared to previous researches.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.2434-2448
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• 2014

This research proposed the domain division depth map quantization for multiview intermediate image generation using Depth Image-Based Rendering (DIBR). This technique used per-pixel depth quantization according to the percentage of depth bits assigned in domains of depth range. A comparative experiment was conducted to investigate the potential benefits of the proposed method against the linear depth quantization on DIBR multiview intermediate image generation. The experiment evaluated three quantization methods with computer-generated 3D scenes, which consisted of various scene complexities and backgrounds, under varying the depth resolution. The results showed that the proposed domain division depth quantization method outperformed the linear method on the 7- bit or lower depth map, especially in the scene with the large object.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.175-182
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• 2017

In this paper, we present a multi-depth generation method using a time-of-flight (ToF) fusion camera system. Multi-view color cameras in the parallel type and ToF depth sensors are used for 3D scene capturing. Although each ToF depth sensor can measure the depth information of the scene in real-time, it has several problems to overcome. Therefore, after we capture low-resolution depth images by ToF depth sensors, we perform a post-processing to solve the problems. Then, the depth information of the depth sensor is warped to color image positions and used as initial disparity values. In addition, the warped depth data is used to generate a depth-discontinuity map for efficient stereo matching. By applying the stereo matching using belief propagation with the depth-discontinuity map and the initial disparity information, we have obtained more accurate and stable multi-view disparity maps in reduced time.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.8-17
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• 2011

Recently, fusion camera systems that consist of depth sensors and color cameras have been widely developed with the advent of a new type of sensor, time-of-flight (TOF) depth sensor. The physical limitation of depth sensors usually generates low resolution images compared to corresponding color images. Therefore, the pre-processing module, such as camera calibration, three dimensional warping, and hole filling, is necessary to generate the high resolution depth map that is placed in the image plane of the color image. However, the result of the pre-processing step is usually inaccurate due to errors from the camera calibration and the depth measurement. Therefore, in this paper, we present a depth map upsampling method robust these errors. First, the confidence of the measured depth value is estimated by the interrelation between the color image and the pre-upsampled depth map. Then, the detailed depth map can be generated by the modified kernel regression method which exclude depth values having low confidence. Our proposed algorithm guarantees the high quality result in the presence of the camera calibration errors. Experimental comparison with other data fusion techniques shows the superiority of our proposed method.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.331-351
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• 2021

Underwater images are very much different from images taken on land, due to the presence of a higher disturbance ratio caused by the presence of water medium between the camera and the target object. These distortions and noises result in unclear details and reduced quality of the output image. An underwater image restoration method is proposed in this paper, which uses blurriness information, background light neutralization information, and red-light intensity to estimate depth. The transmission map is then estimated using the derived depth map, by considering separate attenuation coefficients for direct and backscattered signals. The estimated transmission map and estimated background light are then used to recover the scene radiance. Qualitative and quantitative analysis have been used to compare the performance of the proposed method against other state-of-the-art restoration methods. It has been shown that the proposed method can yield good quality restored underwater images. The proposed method has also been evaluated using different qualitative metrics, and results have shown that method is highly capable of restoring underwater images with different conditions. The results are significant and show the applicability of the proposed method for underwater image restoration work.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.23-28
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• 2014

For the reconstruction of three-dimensional (3D) shape of microscopic objects through shape from focus (SFF) methods, usually a single focus measure operator is employed. However, it is difficult to compute accurate depth map using a single focus measure due to different textures, light conditions and arbitrary object surfaces. Moreover, real images with diverse types of illuminations and contrasts lead to the erroneous depth map estimation through a single focus measure. In order to get better focus measurements and depth map, we have combined focus measure operators by using genetic algorithm. The resultant focus measure is obtained by weighted sum of the output of various focus measure operators. Optimal weights are obtained using genetic algorithm. Finally, depth map is obtained from the refined focus volume. The performance of the developed method is then evaluated by using both the synthetic and real world image sequences. The experimental results show that the proposed method is more effective in computing accurate depth maps as compared to the existing SFF methods.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.1245-1252
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• 2013

As the usage of digital image contents increase, a security problem for the payed image data or the ones requiring confidentiality is raised. This paper propose a depth-map image contents encryption methodology to hide the depth information. This method is performed on the frequency coefficients in the Wavelet domain. This method, by selecting the level and threshold value for the wavelet transform, encryption at various strengths are possible. The experimental results showed that encrypting only 0.048% of the entire data was enough to hide the constants of the depth-map. The encryption algorithm expected to be used effectively on the researches on encryption and others for image processing.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.29-42
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• 2013

In this paper, we analyze the effect of the depth perception, volume perception and visual discomfort according to the change of the quality of the depth image and the depth of the major object. For the analysis, a 2D image was converted to eighteen 3D images using depth images generated based on the different depth position of a major object and background, which were represented in three detail levels. The subjective test was carried out using eighteen 3D images so that the degrees of the depth perception, volume perception and visual discomfort recognized by the subjects were investigated according to the change in the depth position of the major object and the quality of depth map. The absolute depth position of a major object and the relative depth difference between background and the major object were adjusted in three levels, respectively. The details of the depth map was also represented in three levels. Experimental results showed that the quality of the depth image differently affected the depth perception, volume perception and visual discomfort according to the absolute and relative depth position of the major object. In the case of the cardboard depth image, it severely damaged the volume perception regardless of the depth position of the major object. Especially, the depth perception was also more severely deteriorated by the cardboard depth image as the major object was located inside the screen than outside the screen. Furthermore, the subjects did not felt the difference of the depth perception, volume perception and visual comport from the 3D images generated by the detail depth map and by the rough depth map. As a result, it was analyzed that the excessively detail depth map was not necessary for enhancement of the stereoscopic perception in the 2D-to-3D conversion.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.140-148
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• 2012

For autonomous navigation, map, pose tracking, and finding the shortest path are required. Because there is no GPS signal in indoor environment, the current position should be recognized in the 3D map by using image processing or something. In this paper, we explain 3D map creation technology by using depth camera like Kinect and pose tracking in 3D map by using 2D image taking from camera. In addition, the mechanism of avoiding obstacles is discussed.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.6 no.10
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• pp.2663-2678
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• 2012

Due to sharp depth transition, big holes may be found in the novel view that is synthesized by depth-image-based rendering (DIBR). A hole-filling method based on disparity map is proposed. One important aspect of the method is that the disparity map of destination image is used for hole-filling, instead of the depth image of reference image. Firstly, the big hole detection based on disparity map is conducted, and the start point and the end point of the hole are recorded. Then foreground pixels and background pixels are distinguished for hole-dilating according to disparity map, so that areas with matching errors can be determined and eliminated. In addition, parallaxes of pixels in the area with holes and matching errors are changed to new values. Finally, holes are filled with background pixels from reference image according to these new parallaxes. Experimental results show that the quality of the new view after hole-filling is quite well; and geometric distortions are avoided in destination image, in contrast to the virtual view generated by depth-smoothing methods and image inpainting methods. Moreover, this method is easy for hardware implementation.