Recovering a deformable 3D surface from a single image is an ill-posed problem because of the depth ambiguities. The resolution to this ambiguity normally requires prior knowledge about the most probable deformations that the surface can support. Many methods that address this problem have been proposed in the literature. Some of them rely on physical properties, while others learn the principal deformations of the object or are based on a reference textured image. However, they present some limitations such as high computational cost or the lack of the possibility of recovering the 3D shape. As an alternative to existing solutions, this paper provides a novel approach that simultaneously recovers the non-rigid 3D shape and the camera pose in real time from a single image. This proposal relies on an efficient particle filter that performs an intelligent search of a database of deformations. We present an exhaustive Design of Experiments to obtain the optimal parametrization of the particle filter, as well as a set of results to demonstrate the visual quality and the performance of our approach. (C) 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Marker systems are a widely used optical tracking method that does not support occlusions. Thus, this paper proposes a new marker design to overcome the problem of marker occlusions. It is highly adaptable, because it can be used by any marker tracking system that uses its central area to codify the digital identification. Our proposal takes advantage of an untapped frame to place some textures that will be tracked during marker occlusion. In addition, these textures are customizable, which lets users make their own designs. Two tracking methods are combined to offer a robust tracking, updating the six degrees of freedom of the camera in real time. The first one is a fast technique based on temporal coherence, whereas the second one is a robust technique based on appearance, which is used as a recovery mode. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Marker systems are a widely used optical tracking method that does not support occlusions. Thus, this paper proposes a new marker design to overcome the problem of marker occlusions. It is highly adaptable, because it can be used by any marker tracking system that uses its central area to codify the digital identification. Our proposal takes advantage of an untapped frame to place some textures that will be tracked during marker occlusion. In addition, these textures are customizable, which lets users make their own designs. Two tracking methods are combined to offer a robust tracking, updating the six degrees of freedom of the camera in real time. The first one is a fast technique based on temporal coherence, whereas the second one is a robust technique based on appearance, which is used as a recovery mode. Copyright (c) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.