Free viewpoint video generation system using visual hull
Free viewpoint video technology can be used for visualization of a 3-D scene from arbitrary viewpoints, and has potential application in broadcasting of sport events. The target of our study is 3-D reconstruction of sport events from multi-view videos that were taken with several cameras sparsely arranged around players. To improve the image quality of free viewpoint video, we have introduced a reconstruction method of 3-D voxel model combining object silhouettes and photo-consistency. Moreover, we propose a method that determines the color of each voxel depending on the viewing direction without explicitly handling occlusions among the voxels. More specifically, we adopt a robust curve fitting method using Fourier series to correctly capture the color changes of each voxel along the direction from which it is seen.