An assisted photography method for street scenes

Abstract

We present an interactive, computational approach for assisting users with visual impairments during photographic documentation of transit problems. Our technique can be described as a method to improve picture composition, while retaining visual information that is expected to be most relevant. Our system considers the position of the estimated region of interest (ROI) of a photo, and camera orientation. Saliency maps and Gestalt theory are used for guiding the user towards a more balanced picture. Our current implementation for mobile phones uses optic flow to update the internal knowledge of the position of the ROI and tilt sensor readings to correct non horizontal or vertical camera orientations. Using ground truth labels, we confirmed our method proposes valid strategies for improving image composition. Future work includes an optimized implementation and user studies.