Technical Perspective: 3D image editing made easy
tional analysis to facilitate 3D manipulation of objects in a photograph. However their tool is specifically designed for cuboids and only works for objects made of boxes, rectangular plates, and square pillars. The present technology on the other hand, can handle a significantly larger variety of objects with curved surfaces by introducing a sophisticated gestural interaction. It should be noted, however, that the present technology currently supports only one class of primitive: generalized cylinders. This representation is highly versatile and covers many human made objects; nonetheless it is not sufficient for representing complicated shapes perceived in nature. Tools are needed to create a more diverse set of shape primitives to represent complicated shapes, which would enable manipulation of arbitrary objects viewed in photographs. One promising approach is to use a large collection of known 3D geom etries. 1 Nevertheless, the core concept presented in this paper combining human perception and computational analysis using clever interactive de sign is broad and applicable to the development of future tools. Rapid developments in 3D image editing tools inspired by this work can be foreseen, and it will become increasingly easier for even casual users to readily edit photographs. Images will no longer always depict unaltered reality. Is this good or bad? The answer may not be self evident; however, such a future is surely coming. Interactive images: Cuboid proxies for smart image manipulation. NUMEROUS IMAGES APPEAR each day on smartphone screens, computer displays and printed materials. News articles and advertisements attract the attention of viewers by using appealing images. People often take photographs with their smartphones and immediately share them with hundreds of viewers via social media. Moreover, users include images in documents and presentations to communicate messages. These images are typically edited to appear more aesthetically pleasing or achieve other objectives. Thus, there is an increasing need for advanced image editing tools. Image editing has significantly advanced over the past several years to address consumer demand. Color adjustment tools now more readily facilitate simpler image sharpening, softening, brightening, and darkening. Furthermore, advanced tools can automatically remove blur and noise. Users can easily cut an object in an image and paste it onto another background. Moreover, it is easy to readily deform shapes as needed and seamlessly blend two images. It is even possible to erase objects in a scene by removing the object and filling the hole by automatically synthesizing appropriate background images. Despite
Commun. ACM