Image-based photo hulls

We present an efficient image-based rendering algorithm that computes photo hulls of a scene photographed from multiple viewpoints. Our algorithm, called image-based photo hulls (IBPH), like the image-based visual hulls (IBVH) algorithm from Matusik et. al. (2000) on which it is based, takes advantage of epipolar geometry to efficiently reconstruct the geometry and visibility of a scene. Our IBPH algorithm differs from IBVH in that it utilizes the color information of the images to identify the scene geometry. These additional color constraints often result in a more accurately reconstructed geometry, which projects to better synthesized virtual views of the scene. We demonstrate our algorithm running in a real-time 3D telepresence application using video data acquired from four viewpoints.