Akira Kubota, Ph. D


AFFILIATIONS  |  RESEARCH_TOPICS  |  PUBLICATIONS


AFFILIATIONS

·     Visiting scholar at Advanced Multimedia Processing Laboratory (AMP lab) in department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Carnegie Mellon University (Oct. 2003 -)

Mailing Address:

Department of ECE, Carnegie Mellon University,

5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890, USA

Office: Porter Hall B42, Phone: +1-412-268-7114, Fax: +1-412-268-1679

E-mail: kubota@hal.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp

 

·     Research associate at University of Tokyo (Apr. 2002 -)

·     Young scientist researcher of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). (Apr. 2002 -)

 

 

RESEARCH TOPICS

n         All Focused Light Field Rendering by Fusion

Abstract: We present a novel reconstruction method that can synthesize an all in-focus view from under-sampled light fields, significantly suppressing aliasing artifacts. The presented method consists of two steps; 1) rendering multiple views at a given view point by performing light field rendering with different focal plane depths; 2) iteratively reconstructing the all in-focus view by fusing the multiple views. We model the multiple views and the desired all in-focus view as a set of linear equations with a combination of textures at the focal depths. Aliasing artifacts can be modeled as spatially (shift) varying filters. We can solve this set of linear equations by using an iterative reconstruction approach. This method effectively integrates focused regions in each view into an all in-focus view without any local processing steps such as estimation of depth or segmentation of the focused regions.

Keywords: Image-based rendering, Light field rendering, Image fusion, Shift-variant filter

FOr more information: See paper in Eurographics Symposium on Rendering 2004

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n         Reconstructing Dense Light Field from a Multi-Focus Images Array

   

This figure: Sparse epipolar-plane images (EPI) with different focus for two-depth scene in (a) and (b) are combined into an all focused and dense EPI in (c).

Abstract: We present a novel method for synthesizing a new view from two sets of differently focused images taken by a sparse camera array for a scene of two approximately constant depths. The proposed method consists of two steps. The first step is a view interpolation to reconstruct an all-focused dense light field of the scene. The second step is to synthesize a novel view by light-field rendering technique from the reconstructed dense light field. The view interpolation can be achieved simply by linear filters that are designed to convert the defocus effects to the parallax effects without estimating the depth map of the scene. The proposed method can effectively create a dense array of pin-hole cameras (i.e., all-focused images), so that the final novel view is better than traditional method using sparse array of cameras.

Keywords: Image-based rendering, Light field rendering, Linear filter, blur, epipolar-plane image, interpolation

FOr more information: see paper in Int. Conf. on Multimedia and Expo. 2004

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Other Research Topics (under construction)

n         All focus image generation using linear filtering of differently focused images

n         Producing special visual effects by fusing multiple focused images

n         Depth from focus; 3D modeling and all focused image generation from microscopic images

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PUBLICATIONS (selected)

n         Journal Papers

K. Aizawa, K. Kodama, A. Kubota, “Producing Object Based Special Effects by Fusing Multiple Differently Focused Images,” IEEE Trans. Circuit and Systems for Video Technology, Special Issue on 3D Video Technology, pp.323-330, March 2000

(There are 4 journal papers published in Japan)

 

n         Book Chapter

K. Aizawa, A. Kubota, K. Kodama, “Implicit 3D approach to image generation: Object based visual effects by linear processing of multiple differently focused images,” Multi-Image Search and Analysis, R. Klette, Th. Huang, G. Gimel'farb (eds.), LNCS 2032, pp.226-237, Springer, 2001.

 

n         International Conference

2004

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, T. Chen, Virtual View Synthesis through Linear Processing without Geometry,” IEEE Int. Conf. Image Processing (ICIP2004), Oct. 24-27, 2004 (accepted) [PDF, 376KB]

 

K. Takahashi, A. Kubota, T. Naemura, A Focus Measure for Light Field Rendering,” IEEE Int. Conf. Image Processing (ICIP2004), Oct. 24-27, 2004 (accepted) [PDF]

 

A. Kubota, K. Takahashi, K. Aizawa, T. Chen, “All-Focused Light Field Rendering,” Eurographics Symposium on Rendering (EGSR2004), June 21-23, 2004 [PDF, 2.8MB]

 

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, T. Chen, “Reconstructing Dense Light Field from a Multi-Focus Images Array,” IEEE Conference on Multimedia and Expo 2004 (ICME2004), June 27-30, 2004 [PDF, 378KB]

 

2003

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, “A novel image-based rendering method by linear filtering of multiple focused images acquired by a camera array,” IEEE Int. Conf. Image Processing (ICIP2003) Vol. III, pp. 701-704, Sep.13-17, 2003, Barcelona, Spain

 

K. Takahashi, A. Kubota, T. Naemura, “All in-focus image synthesis from under-sampled light fields,” 13th Int. Conf. on Artificial Reality and Telexistence (ICAT2003), pp. 249–256, Dec. 3-5, 2003, Tokyo, Japan [PDF]

 

2002

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, “Arbitrary view and focus image generation: Rendering object-based shifting and focusing effect by linear filtering,” IEEE Int. Conf. Image Processing (ICIP2002) Vol. I, pp. 489- 492, MA-P.7.11, Sep.23-25, 2002, Rochester, NY [PDF, 2.4MB]

 

2001

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, “A new approach to depth range detection by producing depth-dependent blurring effect,” IEEE Int. Conf. on Image Processing (ICIP2001), Vol.III, pp.740-743, Oct. 7-10, 2001, Thessaloniki, Greece.

 

Y. Tsubaki, A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, “All-focused image generation and 3D modelling of microscopic images of insects,” IEEE Int. Conf. on Image Processing (ICIP2001), Vol.II, pp.197-200, Oct. 7-10, 2001, Thessaloniki, Greece

 

2000

A. Kubota, K. Aizawa, "Inverse filters for reconstruction of arbitrarily focused images from two differently focused images," IEEE Int. Conf. on Image Processing 2000 (ICIP'2000), Vol. I, pp.101-104, Sep. 10-13 2000, Vancouver, Canada [PDF, 650kB]

 

1999

A. Kubota, K. Kodama, K. Aizawa, "Registration and blur estimation methods for multiple differently focused images,'' IEEE International Conference on Image Processing 99 (ICIP '99) Vol. II, pp.447-451, Oct. 24-28 1999, Kobe, Japan

 

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Last update: July 8, 2004