Check out the cached version of this story at Video: Voodoo Software Removes Objects From Video In Real Time | Popular Science (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:8jL-es-zw_sJ:www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/video-voodoo-software-removes-objects-live-video+video-voodoo-software-removes-objects-live-video&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=firefox-a)

For some reason the source page (http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-10/video-voodoo-software-removes-objects-live-video) defaults to the home page of Popular Science. Have they pulled the story?

Demo video is available directly at YouTube - The incredible world of Diminished Reality (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FgTq-AgYlTE)

Objects are removed in real time, thwarted by reflections which would essentially count as a separate object as far as the software is concerned. Very interesting tech, especially as it is processed live with a mere 40 milliseconds.

Andrew

I would love to see this in product form! That could be really useful. It looks like you need an uncluttered background for it to work, but hey sometimes something like this is all you need.

Wow, with this I could film, e.g. steam train specials, and apply a "people filter" to take out everyone else trying to do the same/getting into shot...but in reality (as has been indicated) it probably needs a plain (or at least relatively uniform) background to do it's on the fly masking. Very impressive demo though.

Very interesting. Unfortunately there are too many motion artifacts that make it look like a bad clone-stamp job. It can only get better, though.

Any remaining blotchyness in the texture of the background objects won't get noticed if people aren't looking for it. Understandably we are, due to the nature of it being a demo.

Beats doing it manually.

Andrew

It's not quite there yet, but it wasn't all that long ago that DV Magazine ran an article about how it was "almost" possible to edit video on a laptop, so with increases in computer technology, it will certainly improve dramatically. I wonder how well something like this would work if the minds at Pixar, ILM, or Weta started thinking along these lines?

BTW, the comments in the youtube video are hysterical.

If it gets a bit more polished, i could see this being useful for live TV - removing a brand logo, or hiding something ugly but immovable that spoils a wide shot.

Too bad this won't remove objects that are moving relative to the rest of the scene. Would be great to get rid of that out-of-focus waving blade of grass in the foreground that you didn't notice at the time but that ruined the shot.

@Andrew: The story is right, here is the original press info from the university of Ilmenau in Germany: Themenbox (http://www.tu-ilmenau.de/journalisten/themenbox/#c78658)