Header

UZH-Logo

Maintenance Infos

Robust enhancement of depth images from depth sensors


Islam, A B M Tariqul; Scheel, Christian; Pajarola, Renato; Staadt, Oliver G (2017). Robust enhancement of depth images from depth sensors. Computers & Graphics, 68:53-65.

Abstract

In recent years, depth cameras (such as Microsoft Kinect and ToF cameras) have gained much popularity in computer graphics, visual computing and virtual reality communities due to their low price and easy availability. While depth cameras (e.g. Microsoft Kinect) provide RGB images along with real-time depth information at high frame rate, the depth images often suffer from several artifacts due to inaccurate depth measurement. These artifacts highly degrade the visual quality of the depth frames. Most of these artifacts originate from two main sources—the missing/invalid depth values and fluctuating valid depth values on the generated contents. In this paper, we propose a new depth image enhancement method, for the contents of depth cameras, which addresses these two main sources of artifacts. We introduce a robust 1D Least Median of Squares (1D LMedS) approach to estimate the depth values of those pixels which have missing/invalid depth values. We use a sequence of frames to look for invalid depth values (considered as outliers), and finally, replace those values with stable and more plausible depth values. By doing so, our approach improves the unstable nature of valid depth values in captured scenes that is perceived as flickering. We use self-recorded and reference datasets along with reference methods to evaluate the performance of our proposed 1D LMedS. Experimental results show improvements both for static and moving parts of a scene.

Abstract

In recent years, depth cameras (such as Microsoft Kinect and ToF cameras) have gained much popularity in computer graphics, visual computing and virtual reality communities due to their low price and easy availability. While depth cameras (e.g. Microsoft Kinect) provide RGB images along with real-time depth information at high frame rate, the depth images often suffer from several artifacts due to inaccurate depth measurement. These artifacts highly degrade the visual quality of the depth frames. Most of these artifacts originate from two main sources—the missing/invalid depth values and fluctuating valid depth values on the generated contents. In this paper, we propose a new depth image enhancement method, for the contents of depth cameras, which addresses these two main sources of artifacts. We introduce a robust 1D Least Median of Squares (1D LMedS) approach to estimate the depth values of those pixels which have missing/invalid depth values. We use a sequence of frames to look for invalid depth values (considered as outliers), and finally, replace those values with stable and more plausible depth values. By doing so, our approach improves the unstable nature of valid depth values in captured scenes that is perceived as flickering. We use self-recorded and reference datasets along with reference methods to evaluate the performance of our proposed 1D LMedS. Experimental results show improvements both for static and moving parts of a scene.

Statistics

Citations

Dimensions.ai Metrics
2 citations in Web of Science®
5 citations in Scopus®
Google Scholar™

Altmetrics

Downloads

1 download since deposited on 23 Jan 2018
0 downloads since 12 months
Detailed statistics

Additional indexing

Item Type:Journal Article, refereed, original work
Communities & Collections:03 Faculty of Economics > Department of Informatics
Dewey Decimal Classification:000 Computer science, knowledge & systems
Scopus Subject Areas:Physical Sciences > General Engineering
Physical Sciences > Human-Computer Interaction
Physical Sciences > Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design
Uncontrolled Keywords:graphics, depth image, depth reconstruction
Language:English
Date:November 2017
Deposited On:23 Jan 2018 20:10
Last Modified:25 Oct 2022 09:49
Publisher:Elsevier
ISSN:0097-8493
OA Status:Closed
Publisher DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2017.08.003
Other Identification Number:merlin-id:15686
Project Information:
  • : FunderFP7
  • : Grant ID290227
  • : Project TitleDIVA - â��DIVA: Data Intensive Visualization and Analysis