Researchers develop ‘vampire effect’ for reflection-free photos

 

 

Good news for amateur photographers, especially those forced to take photos from behind a glass window: researchers have found a way to get rid of that accidental reflection.

 

Scientists at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created an algorithm to detect and automatically remove reflections from digital photos.

 

“The ideas here can progress into routine photography, if the algorithm is further robustified and becomes part of toolboxes used in digital photography... It may help robot vision in the presence of confusing glass reflection," said Yoav Schechner, a professor of electrical engineering at Israel’s Technion.

 

MIT researchers are to present the algorithm at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in June.

 

According to an MIT news release, the algorithm exploits the fact that photos taken through windows often feature two nearly identical reflections.

 

Such reflections are usually slightly offset from each other.

 

YiChang Shih, who completed his PhD in computer science at MIT, is the first author on the paper.

 

His co-authors include professors of computer science and engineering Frédo Durand and Bill Freeman, who were Shih’s thesis advisors; and Dilip Krishnan, a former postdoc in Freeman’s group now at Google Research. — Joel Locsin/TJD, GMA News