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:
Jun. 27, 2000
Filed:
Jun. 07, 1995
Peter Quarendon, Romsey, GB;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
An image processing method is disclosed for generating 3-D graphical model data representing the appearance of a number of points in a 3-D region from two or more 2-D images of the region, the method comprising the steps of a) calculating, for each point, at least one variance value representing the variation, between different ones of the 2-D images in the region of the position on the 2-D images at which the point would appear if it were visible in the images; b) calculating, for each point and using a predetermined rule, a merit value from the variance values, the merit value representing the probability that, if the point lay on a visible surface in the 3-D region, the calculated variance values would be obtained; and c) assigning appearance data to each point in accordance with the merit values and the appearances of the positions on the 2-D images where the point would appear if it were visible thereon. The model is to be rendered to produce images for graphics applications.