Real-time depth map generation using hybrid multi-view cameras

In this paper, we present a hybrid multi-view camera system for real-time depth generation. We set up eight color cameras and three depth cameras. For simple test scenarios, we capture a single object at a blue-screen studio. The objective is depth map generation at eight color viewpoints. Due to hardware limitations, depth cameras produce low resolution images, i.e., 176×144. Thus, we warp the depth data to the color cameras views (1280×720) and then execute filtering. Joint bilateral filtering (JBF) is used to exploit range and spatial weights, considering color data as well. Simulation results exhibit depth generation of 13 frames per second (fps) when treating eight images as a single frame. When the proposed method is executed on a computer per depth camera basis, the speed can become three times faster. Thus, we have successfully achieved real-time depth generation using a hybrid multi-view camera system.