Synthesis of Virtual Views of non-Lambertian Surfaces through Shading-Driven Interpolation of Stereo-Matched Contours

A technique for the synthesis of virtual views of a 3D scene, starting from images taken by a calibrated multicamera system, is proposed and tested. Surface interpolation is performed over a set of 3D edges, computed with stereometric algorithms, and additional curvature-tuning points, scattered where the reflectivity model is sufficiently reliable. The 3D coordinates of the tuning points are computed by minimizing the MSE between the available real views and the corresponding synthetic views. Synthesis is finally carried out by reprojecting on the new image plane the estimated object surface over which texture-mapping of the reflection-corrected luminance function has been performed. Texture correction, which uses an estimate of a non-Lambertian reflectivity model, is done in such a way to simulate the migration of reflections due to the change of viewpoint. The technique has been tested on real images, producing realistic synthesized views