Hidden images

Abstract

A hidden image is a form of artistic expression in which one or more secondary objects (or scenes) are hidden within a primary image. Features of the primary image, especially its edges and texture, are used to portray a secondary object. People can recognize both the primary and secondary intent in such pictures, although the time taken to do so depends on the prior experience of the viewer and the strength of the clues. Here, we present a system for creating such images. It relies on the ability of human perception to recognize an object, e.g. a human face, from incomplete edge information within its interior, rather than its outline. Our system detects edges of the object to be hidden, and then finds a place where it can be embedded within the scene, together with a suitable transformation for doing so, by optimizing an energy based on edge differences. Embedding is performed using a modified Poisson blending approach, which strengthens matched edges of the host image using edges of the object being embedded. We show various hidden images generated by our system.