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A study of hardware-friendly methods for gradient domain tone mapping of high dynamic range images

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Abstract

A large class of techniques for image processing is based on manipulation of the gradient field of an image. These techniques have high computational complexity, due to the need to solve an inverse problem, taking the form of a Poisson equation, to find the output image that best matches a manipulated gradient field. This work studies hardware-friendly techniques, appropriate for implementation on a field-programmable gate array implementation and embeddable inside a camera, for approximating this solution. Fattal’s operator for the dynamic range compression of high dynamic range images is studied as a representative example application. A family of methods, inspired by Fattal’s operator but with significantly lower computational complexity, solves the inverse problem in a moving window of small size. In this paper, a study is conducted to understand the role that the boundary conditions and the size of the window play in the quality of the resulting output image and the size of the hardware. The impact of using single-scale and multi-scale approaches to compute the attenuation factors needed for Fattal’s operator is also considered.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325, USA

    Jian Liu & Joan E. Carletta

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Ohio Northern University, Ada, OH, 45810, USA

    Firas Hassan

Authors
  1. Jian Liu
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  2. Firas Hassan
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  3. Joan E. Carletta
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Correspondence to Firas Hassan.

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J.E. Carletta is Member of IEEE.

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Liu, J., Hassan, F. & Carletta, J.E. A study of hardware-friendly methods for gradient domain tone mapping of high dynamic range images. J Real-Time Image Proc 12, 165–181 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11554-013-0365-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11554-013-0365-y

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