Apple Inc.

Apple Computers Inc.

Yalin Xiong

Ken Turkowski

An improved apparatus and method for creating high quality virtual reality panoramas is disclosed that yields dramatic improvements during the authoring and projecting cycles, with speeds up to several orders of magnitude faster than prior systems. In a preferred embodiment, a series of rectilinear images taken from a plurality of rows are pairwise registered with one another, and locally optimized using a pairwise objective function (local error function) that minimizes certain parameters in a projective transformation, using an improved iterative procedure. The local error function values for the pairwise registrations are then saved and used to construct a quadratic surface to approximate a global optimization function (global error function). The chain rule is used to avoid the direct evaluation of the global objective function, saving computation. In one embodiment concerning the blending aspect of the present invention, an improved procedure is described that relies on Laplacian and Gaussian pyramids, using a blend mask whose boundaries are determined by the grassfire transform. An improved iterative procedure is disclosed for the blending that also determines at what level of the pyramid to perform blending, and results in low frequency image components being blended over a wider region and high frequency components being blended over a narrower region. Human interaction and input is also provided to allow manual projective registration, initial calibration and feedback in the selection of photos and convergence of the system.

Aligning rectilinear images in 3D through projective registration and calibration

Blending arbitrary overlaying images into panoramas

The present invention provides a method and system for providing a virtual reality environment utilizing images from a lens on a display of a data processing system is disclosed. The method and system comprises providing a plurality of images, each of the plurality of images including a plurality of parameters and optimizing the plurality of parameters for each of the plurality of images in accordance with a radial distortion model. The method and system also including generating the virtual reality environment of the plurality of images based upon the optimization of the plurality of parameters.

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Montrose, CA, United States of America

Yalin Xiong