OBJECT CUT AND PASTE IN IMAGES AND VIDEOS
Gerald H Friedland, Kristian Jantz, TOBIAS LENZ, Fabian Wiesel, Raúl Rojas · International Journal of Semantic Computing · 2007
Most image and video editing applications implement only a set of low-level operations, such as linear and non-linear filters, scaling, and simple rectangular cropping. A skilled user is required to combine these traditional tools creatively to perform a useful task. This article presents an example of an approach that takes into account the semantics of the image and is therefore more powerful than traditional tools. Using a model of the foreground and the background of a given image, the SIOX tool (Simple Interactive Object Extraction) allows a user to cut out a certain object from an image or video with very little user interaction. The core of the algorithm is a color clustering approach that has been derived from image retrieval techniques and evaluated against a benchmark proposed by Microsoft Research. The method allows for sub-pixel accuracy, allows video segmentation in realtime (640 × 480 × 25), and is noise robust. SIOX has recently been integrated into the development versions of several open source image and video editing applications such as GIMP, Blender, and Inkscape.