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Z-Keying This project is no longer active. Mailing address: Kazuo Oda (koda@cs.cmu.edu) Associated center: VASC Associated lab/group: Vision for Virtual Environments For more information, see this project's homepage.

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Project Description

Image keying is a method which merges two images. The two input images are connected to a switch which is turned according to some information (key) attached to image pixel. Chroma-key is the standard video keying method used in TV industry to select part of real images - e.g. a weather man in front of a blue screen - by using chromaticity as the means of differentiation. However, chroma-key implicitly assumes that the real objects are always in front of the synthesized objects or scene.

In contrast, the z-key uses pixel-by-pixel depth information in the form of a depth map as a switch, thus it is able to separate based on the detailed shape and position of surfaces. Therefore, we can place real and virtual objects into a synthesized image according to their local and global positional relationship.

The z-key method will extend the possibilities of synthesizing virtual reality and make applications such as tele-operation, tele-presence, training systems with simulation, and games playing in virtual reality, possible and/or more effective.

Past members

	Name	Title	Email Address
	Takeo Kanade	U.A. and Helen Whitaker University Prof., RI/CS	tk@cs.cmu.edu

Publications

Note: This list may not be comprehensive. It contains only those publications in the RI publications database. Entries are listed in reverse chronological order.

• Video-Rate Z Keying: A New Method for Merging Images
  T. Kanade, K. Oda, A. Yoshida, M. Tanaka, and H. Kano
  tech. report CMU-RI-TR-95-38, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, December, 1995. [Abstract]
  Download: pdf [475 KB], ps.gz [564 KB] copyrighted