US 11,949,843 B1
System and method for enhancing three-dimensional (3D) depth acquisition
Shenchang Eric Chen, Los Gatos, CA (US)
Assigned to Meta Platforms, Inc., Menlo Park, CA (US)
Filed by Meta Platforms, Inc., Menlo Park, CA (US)
Filed on May 28, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/827,704.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/209,115, filed on Jun. 10, 2021.
Int. Cl. H04N 13/122 (2018.01); H04N 13/254 (2018.01)
CPC H04N 13/122 (2018.05) [H04N 13/254 (2018.05)] 8 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
capturing an image for each flash unit of an electronic device, each image being illuminated during the capturing of the image;
obtaining a normalized image from one or more of the illuminated images;
using an illumination-based optimization framework to generate an enhanced three-dimensional (3D) depth image, the illumination-based optimization framework being based on the one or more of the illuminated images, wherein the illumination-based optimization framework incorporates the normalized image and 3D depth data associated with the image into the generation of the enhanced 3D depth image;
generating an enhanced 3D depth field as part of the illumination-based optimization framework, the enhanced 3D depth field being generated based on the normalized image and the 3D depth data, wherein each pixel in the normalized image includes an orientation estimation of a surface point corresponding to the pixel in the image;
determining whether more than a predetermined number of flash units were utilized for illumination of each image during the capturing of each image for each flash unit; and
when more than the predetermined number of flash units were utilized for illumination of each image during the capturing of each image for each flash unit, using a pseudo-inverse processing technique to obtain the normal image.