Light-weight marker hiding for augmented reality

Abstract

In augmented reality, marker-based tracking is the most common method for camera pose estimation. Most of the markers are black and white patterns that are visually obtrusive, but they can be hidden from the video using image inpainting methods. In this paper, we present a computationally efficient approach to achieve this. We use a high-resolution hiding texture, which is captured and generated only once. To capture continuous changes in illumination, reflections and exposure, we also compute a very low-resolution texture at each frame. The coarse and fine textures are combined to obtain a detailed hiding texture which reacts to changing conditions and runs efficiently in mobile phone environments.