Abstract

This paper discusses the process of compositing historical and modern photographs of an urban landscape into a novel view depicting structures from both time periods. Issues unique to this application of image compositing are addressed using techniques inspired by recent work in data-driven methods, and the use of these methods is demonstrated on an example scene. Finally, extensions of these techniques to other forms of historical photographs are discussed and potential areas of further investigation are identified.

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The author wishes to thank Alexei A. Efros for his advice and suggestions throughout the course of this work.

Images utilized in this research include "A view from atop Duquesne Heights" by Flickr user "Deepak & Sunitha" and various "Pittsburgh - Prominent Citizens" images from the LIFE Photo Archive.