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:
Aug. 17, 1999
Filed:
Sep. 10, 1996
Arpag Dadourian, Northridge, CA (US);
Arie Berman, Canoga Park, CA (US);
Paul Vlahos, Tarzana, CA (US);
Ultimatte Corporation, Chatsworth, CA (US);
Abstract
A method of removing the foreground subject and its shadow from a series of image frames including a subject before a colored backing being photographed by a moving camera during a live broadcast. Such removal results in a series of image frames of the colored backing without the subject, each image frame corresponding to an image frame containing the subject. The method steps employed identify, for each frame, those pixels in the frame occupied by elements of the subject. Those pixels are set to an RGB level of zero, to create an image of the colored backing in which the subject area is reduced to black. The image of the colored backing is then smeared to obliterate the defined edges of the subject's shadow and to smear the color of the backing into the black area previously occupied by the subject to generate a clear frame. The clear frame is then utilized to compensate for backing luminance and color nonuniformity, thereby preventing visibility of the joining edge of generated windows that extend the backing to the edge of the frame.