Photography for the beginner is about to get so much better! It’s always a hassle when you see a great view, but between you and that view is a window or fence–which clearly does not make for great photos. 4 MIT students backed by google have come up with a solution, they created an algorithm that will separate parts of the image, leaving a background free of obstruction. So the next time that you take a photo through the window of an airplane or your hotel room, you can remove the glare and the image of you/ your clothes.
This new technology seems like something straight out of CSI, where they are able to zoom in to license plates without pixilation and delete anything blocking the person they want to see. However, in the video below the students explain just how they did it and show the technology in action. This will especially come in handy when taking photos and video with your smart phone, as the lens zoom is not as strong as on DSLRs, and thus getting shots in between fence gaps is near impossible. Soon this will be a problem of the past.
There is a lot of mathematical explanation in this video, but it is interesting to see the different ways that they are able to remove glare, reflections, and obstructions like fences.
Photo credit: “A Computational Approach for Obstruction-Free Photography”- paper
