Editing digital photographs is nothing new, but Kevin Karsch, a PhD student from UIUC, and his associates seem to be taking it to a new level. They recently released some details of a current project that goes beyond simple image editing. The project seems to be focused on simplifying the process of realistically inserting objects into photographs. The abstract of their work explains it best…

“We propose a method to realistically insert synthetic objects into existing photographs without requiring access to the scene or any additional scene measurements. With a single image and a small amount of annotation, our method creates a physical model of the scene that is suitable for realistically rendering synthetic objects with diffuse, specular, and even glowing materials while accounting for lighting interactions between the objects and the scene.”

Check out this video demonstrating some of the capabilities of their work.

Rendering Synthetic Objects into Legacy Photographs from Kevin Karsch on Vimeo.

While there is currently no software to demo it is certainly something to keep an eye on. As for for my self I tend to lean towards creating images from my natural surroundings and prefer not to do this type of digital manipulation. Although, I do see a lot of potential for those digital artists merging photography and computer imagery.

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