The algorithm is still in experimental stage for now

Aug 7, 2015 15:22 GMT  ·  By

Advances in photo processing techniques will soon allow users to take beautiful photos and automatically remove reflections and nearby obstructions.

A new research paper by MIT students, together with Google staff and some previous contributions from Microsoft Research, details a new algorithm which can be used to separate images into two different layers.

The algorithm moves nearby objects and reflections into their own separate layer, leaving the background (the photo we wanted to take) into its own.

The algorithm detects changes in a series of photos

The only condition is that the user takes a short photo sequence, moving the camera between shots, so that the algorithm can calculate and detect the reflection and the background layer.

In the future, software programs could use this algorithm to allow users to clean out their photos, taken with digital cameras or with a smartphone.

The technique can additionally be used in stitching together panorama images, removing unwanted artifacts due to reflections or other objects.

Coming to a mobile phone near you in...

The good news is that researchers have used a mobile phone in their demos, meaning the technology is CPU-friendly enough to be deployed inside an app without needing a desktop PC for all the algorithm's computations.

But if any of you photography geeks plan to keep an eye on Google's Play store for an app in the coming days, we will disappoint you by revealing that no timeline has been given for any such endeavor.

According to researchers, "we have shown promising experimental results on various real and challenging examples, and demonstrated significant improvement in quality compared to prior work." Which tells us there's still some work needed before they'll be ready to deliver a feasible version of their code.

Below is the video presentation that accompanied the newly released research paper.

Reflections and the base photos can be easily separated
Reflections and the base photos can be easily separated

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