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A team of researchers in Germany (from Technische Universität Ilmenau) have developed a new technology called “Diminished Reality” that allows real time removal of unwanted objects from a video. It’s an amazing piece of tech; almost seamless, even with complex textures. The offending objects are destroyed and blended into the background as if they never existed — for every frame — and it all happens in milliseconds.
The applications that Diminished Reality could be put toward are many, from personal, to corporate, to government and news media. Imagine being able to remove your ex from that family reunion video; or how about that embarrassing stain that you didn’t notice until you watched the recording back? Maybe this would be a good way to to quickly edit your film — or set up a replacement video for those pesky museum guards to watch… *ahem*
The application of Diminished Reality that immediately comes to mind, however, is censorship — specifically censorship in news footage that could be used for propaganda purposes and the like. Even “live” feeds are potential vehicles in US programming, if the software can be adapted to work with the imposed five-second delay on live broadcasts (thank you Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson). If that happens, the marketing term “Diminished Reality” will take on literal meaning. I am very intrigued to see where this tech will go in the near future.
Check out the video below to see Diminished Reality in action — then leave your thoughts in the comments:
John says:
WOW! Amazing! Thnanks for sharing!
October 22, 2010 — 7:32 am
Bobby Travis says:
Glad you enjoyed it, John!
October 22, 2010 — 1:51 pm
Kevin says:
Great post. I fought through Posterous’ delightful interface to repost it at chiggsy.com with some of my thoughts.
October 22, 2010 — 9:33 pm
Bobby Travis says:
Thanks Kevin — I checked out your thoughts on your Posterous site and they were good for both a thought and a giggle. I’ve quoted you below.
October 22, 2010 — 10:13 pm
Bobby Travis says:
For the sake of continued conversation, everyone, here’s a snippet of what Kevin wrote on the subject:
“I said during R. Kelly’s court case that one day we would name him hero, and it seems that today is the day.
I completely think this will be used for censorship, and certainly as a threat to anyone. The party in power of anywhere would want this, both sides.”
He goes on to talk about the potential this tech has to destroy the video as legal proof — which I agree with, though I think it will give rise to new experts in testimony as well — and the potential to combine this tech with a sort of seamless augmented reality.
Great thoughts! Check him out on chigsy.com for the details.
October 22, 2010 — 10:16 pm