An Image Merging Method for Two High Dynamic Range Images of Different Exposure

노출 시간이 다른 두 HDR 영상의 융합 기법

  • 김진헌 (서경대학교 컴퓨터공학과)
  • Received : 2009.10.08
  • Accepted : 2009.12.29
  • Published : 2010.04.30

Abstract

This paper describes an algorithm which merges two HDR pictures taken under different exposure time to display on the LDR devices such as LCD or CRT. The proposed method does not generate the radiance map, but directly merges using the weights computed from the input images. The weights are firstly produced on the pixel basis, and then blended with a Gaussian function. This process prevents some possible sparkle noises caused by radical change of the weights and contributes to smooth connection between 2 image informations. The chrominance informations of the images are merged on the weighted averaging scheme using the deviations of RGB average and their differences. The algorithm is characterized by the feature that it represents well the unsaturated area of 2 original images and the connection of the image information is smooth. The proposed method uses only 2 input images and automatically tunes the whole internal process according to them, thus autonomous operation is possible when it is included in HDR cameras which use double shuttering scheme or double sensor cells.

본 논문에서는 노출 시간을 달리해 촬영한 두 장의 HDR 사진을 LCD, CRT 같은 LDR 장치에 출력할 수 있도록 융합하는 알고리즘에 대해 기술하였다. 제안된 기법은 레이디언스 맵을 만들지 않고 직접 입력 영상에 대해 계산된 가중치를 이용해 융합한다. 가중치는 처음에는 화소 단위로 만들어져 추후 가우시안 함수로 혼합된다. 이러한 작업은 급격한 가중치 변화로 발생할 수 있는 스파클 잡음을 방지하고 두 영상 정보의 연결 부분을 부드럽게 만드는데 기여한다. 색상 정보의 융합은 RGB와 이들의 평균값과의 차이를 이용해 두 영상의 색차 정보를 가중평균하여 이루어진다. 본 알고리즘은 두 원본 영상에서 포화되지 않은 부분을 잘 표현하고 포화, 불포화 영역간의 연결이 부드러운 특징이 있다. 제안된 기법은 2장의 사진만을 사용하고 영상에 따라 자동으로 내부 인자를 조절하기 때문에 향후 이중 노출이나 이중 센서 셀을 이용한 HDR 카메라에 내장하여 자동화 처리가 가능한 장점이 있다.

Keywords

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