This paper presents a novel method for the removal of unwanted image intensity due to occluding objects far from the plane of focus. Such occlusions may arise in scenes with large depth discontinuities, and result in image regions where both the occluding and background objects contribute to pixel intensities. The contribution of the occluding object's radiance is modeled by reverse projection, and can be removed from this region by a simple operation on the pixel's intensity. Experimental results demonstrate our ability to accurately recover the background's appearance despite significant occlusion. As compared with processing based a linear model of occlusion, the results show lower error and a more accurate contrast.
Kaleem Siddiqi, Michael S. Langer, Scott McCloskey