A Realtime Image Processing by GPU for Augmented Reality

Abstract

In Augmented Reality, geometric consistency between the real and virtual worlds has to be managed so that the user can look at the natural scene. In the case of video see-through augmented reality, virtual objects are usually drawn on the input video images. However, there is a problem of geometric consistency in this manner. Foreground real objects, which must be closer to the user than virtual objects, are sometimes overlaid by background virtual objects which must be farther from the user than the real objects. In order to overcome this problem, depth of the real world from the user's viewpoint is employed. However, if the system is used in a environment including moving or deformable objects, the depth have to be measured in realtime. In this paper, we propose a method of realtime stereo measurement by using Programable Shader on graphics hardware for this purpose.