The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 26, 1992
Filed:
Jun. 25, 1990
Donna S Kroos, Rochester, NY (US);
David K McCauley, Henrietta, NY (US);
Kurt M Sanger, Rochester, NY (US);
Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY (US);
Abstract
An image capture and compositing apparatus for a photobooth (10) photographs a customer against a fixed color background (28), extracts the customer from that image and then inserts the extracted customer image into an arbitrary background image in such a manner that there are no noticeable artifacts between the inserted image and the background image and so that it appears that the subject was actually situated in the background scene when photographed. The imagery processing mechanism employed generates a pair of masks, one of which is associated with the foreground image and the other of which is associated with the background image. These masks are used to extract the subject (160) from an image of the subject against a reference color backdrop, to define what portion of the background image is to be blanked out and to controllably blend the border of the inserted subject image with the background image. The photobooth contains a customer lighting system (50,42) located above and behind the position where the customer is seated. A separate backdrop lighting system (32) is located behind the customer and illuminates a blue reference backdrop against which the customer is photographed and which is photographed per se to provide a reference for mask production.