Separation of transparent layers using focus

Consider situations where the depth at each point in the scene is multi-valued due to the presence of a virtual image semi-reflected by a transparent surface. The semi-reflected image is linearly superimposed on the image of the object that is behind the transparent surface. A novel approach is proposed for the recovery of the superimposed layers. By searching for the images in which either of the objects (layers) is focused, the transparent areas are detected and an estimate of the depth map of each layer is obtained. As a result of the focusing, an initial separation of the layers is achieved. The separation is enhanced via mutual blurring of the perturbing components in the images, based on the depths estimate and the parameters of the imaging system.