Method for general image manipulation and composition

Abstract

Methods are provided for carrying out a selection step and a blending step of a process of photorealistically reconstructing and manipulating a portion of a photograph or digital image, such as a segment or a layer, in order to minimize transition discontinuities and to provide optimum speed in the segmenting of the image, which is a function of increasing importance in a production environment. In the selection step, an image is classified into foreground and background states and regions, which could be limited to a selected layer of a final image. A vector is constructed which maps separation distances in a specialty space such as HSV space between the background region in a background state and the foreground region in a new foreground state. Difference vectors between the old and new foreground states are used to facilitate the mapping via a transition path which occupies the portion of specialty space where all the edge pixels between the foreground and the background parameters are located. An object in a portion of an image which has been manipulated is blended back into the photograph or image in a natural way using the transition vector. In addition, methods for carrying out the manipulating step of this process involve a variable vector quantization step to reduce the number of parameter elements in an image.