Matting and compositing of transparent and refractive objects

Abstract

This article introduces a new approach for matting and compositing transparent and refractive objects in photographs. The key to our work is an image-based matting model, termed the Attenuation-Refraction Matte (ARM), that encodes plausible refractive properties of a transparent object along with its observed specularities and transmissive properties. We show that an object's ARM can be extracted directly from a photograph using simple user markup. Once extracted, the ARM is used to paste the object onto a new background with a variety of effects, including compound compositing, Fresnel effect, scene depth, and even caustic shadows. User studies find our results favorable to those obtained with Photoshop as well as perceptually valid in most cases. Our approach allows photo editing of transparent and refractive objects in a manner that produces realistic effects previously only possible via 3D models or environment matting.