Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

HDR image encoding using a companding-based nonlinear quantization approach without metadata

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Signal, Image and Video Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

High dynamic range (HDR) images contain more details of dark and bright regions, which cannot be captured by the standard cameras. Raw HDR data is represented with floating-point precision, and the commonly used lossless/near-lossless HDR image encoding formats produce files that require large storage and are not suitable for transmission. Methods have been proposed for lossy encoding using single- and dual-layer structures, but the codecs are generally more complex and often require additional metadata for decoding. We propose a dual-layer codec in which companding, which is a closed-form transformation and hence can be reversed without any additional data, is used to generate the first layer. The residual data stored in the second layer is quantized linearly and do not need metadata either for decoding. The proposed codec is computationally light, has higher accuracy, and produces smaller size files compared to the existing codecs. This has been validated through an extensive evaluation using different metrics, and the results are reported in the paper.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. A. D. Association: TIFF revision 6.0. Adobe Systems Incorporated, Mountain View (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bogart, R., Kainz, F., Hess, D.: OpenEXR image file format. SIGGRAPH, Sketches & Applications (2003)

  3. Ward, G.: Real pixels (Graphics Gems II), pp. 80–83. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (1991)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Khan, I.R., Rahardja, S., Khan, M.M., Movania, M.M., Abed, F.: A tone-mapping technique based on histogram using a sensitivity model of the human visual system. IEEE Trans. Industr. Electron. 65(4), 3469–3479 (2017)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Khan, I.R., Aziz, W., Shim, S.-O.: Tone-mapping using perceptual-quantizer and image histogram. IEEE Access 8, 31350–31358 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Rana, A., Singh, P., Valenzise, G., Dufaux, F., Komodakis, N., Smolic, A.: Deep tone mapping operator for high dynamic range images. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 29, 1285–1298 (2019)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. Goris, R., Brondijk, R., van der Vleuten, R.: Philips response to CfE for HDR and WCG. In Presented at the M-36266, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11, 112th MPEG meeting, Warsaw, Poland, September (2015)

  8. Su, G.-M., Qu, S., Hulyalkar, S.N., Chen, T., Gish, W.C., Koepfer, H.: Layer decomposition in hierarchical VDR coding (2016)

  9. 10918-1. ITU-T Rec. T. 81: Digital compression and coding of continuous-tone still images: requirements and guidelines (1993)

  10. Kobayashi, H., Watanabe, O., Hitoshi, K.: Two-layer near-lossless HDR coding with backward compatibility to JPEG. In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP). IEEE, pp. 3547–3551 (2019)

  11. Mantiuk, R., Efremov, A., Myszkowski, K., Seidel, H.-P.: Backward compatible high dynamic range MPEG video compression. Presented at the ACM SIGGRAPH, July (2006)

  12. Wang, J., Li, S., Zhu, Q.: High dynamic range image compression based on visual saliency. APSIPA Trans. Signal Inf. Process. 9, e16, Art. no. e16 (2020)

  13. Khan, I.R.: Effect of smooth inverse tone-mapping functions on performance of two-layer high dynamic range encoding schemes. J. Electron. Imaging 24(1), 013024 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Khan, I.R.: HDR image encoding using reconstruction functions based on piecewise linear approximations. Multimedia Syst. 21(6), 615–624 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Lasserre, S., François, E., Le Léannec, F., Touzé, D.: Single-layer HDR video coding with SDR backward compatibility. In Applications of Digital Image Processing XXXIX; 997108, San Diego, California, United States, vol. 9971: International Society for Optics and Photonics (2016)

  16. Dufaux, F., Le Callet, P., Mantiuk, R., Mrak, M.: High Dynamic Range Video: From Acquisition, to Display and Applications. Academic Press, London (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Lasserre, S., Le Leannec, F., Lopez, P., Olivier, Y., Touze, D., Francois, E.: High dynamic range video coding. In Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC), 16th Meeting, San Jose, CA, pp. 1–8 (2014)

  18. Le Leannec, F. et al.: Modulation channel information SEI message. In Document JCTVC-R0139 (m33776), 18th JCT-VC Meeting, Sapporo, Japan (2014)

  19. [MaxCLL]: CTA 861-G A DTV Profile for Uncompressed High Speed Digital Interfaces. http://www.techstreet.com/standards/cta-861-g?product_id=1934129 (2002)

  20. SMPTE: [SMPTE ST 2086] Mastering Display Color Volume Metadata Supporting High Luminance and Wide Color Gamut Images. The Society of Motion Picture Television Engineers Journal (2014)

  21. ISO/IEC: Doc. ISO/IEC 23008-2:2015 Information Technology—High Efficiency Coding and Media Delivery in Heterogeneous Environments—Part 2: High Efficiency Video Coding (2013)

  22. Richter, T., Bruylants, T., Schelkens, P., Ebrahimi, T.: The JPEG XT suite of standards: status and future plans. In: Applications of Digital Image Processing XXXVIII, vol. 9599: International Society for Optics and Photonics (2015)

  23. Khan, I.R.: A nonlinear quantization scheme for two-layer hdr image encoding. Signal Image Video Process. 10(5), 921–926 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. CCITT: Rec G. 711,Pulse Code Modulation of Voice Frequencies. CCITT Blue Book, vol. 3, pp. 175–184 (1984)

  25. Ward, G., Simmons, M.: JPEG-HDR: A backwards-compatible, high dynamic range extension to JPEG. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2006 Courses, pp. 3–11 (2006)

  26. Funt: HDR Dataset, Computational Vision Lab. https://www2.cs.sfu.ca/~colour/data/funt_hdr/ (2020)

  27. SoruceForge. Pfstools Dataset for HDR imahes. https://sourceforge.net/projects/pfstools/files/pfstools/2.0.1/

  28. Banterle, F.: Hdr toolbox for matlab. https://github.com/banterle/HDR_Toolbox

  29. Erfurt, J., Helmrich, C.R., Bosse, S., Schwarz, H., Marpe, D., Wiegand, T.: A study of the perceptually weighted peak signal-to-noise ratio (WPSNR) for image compression. In: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), Taipei, Taiwan. IEEE, pp. 2339–2343 (2019)

  30. Aydın, T., Mantiuk, R., Seidel, H.-P.: Extending quality metrics to full luminance range images (Electronic Imaging). SPIE (2008)

  31. Mantiuk, R., Kim, K.J., Rempel, A.G., Heidrich, W.: HDR-VDP-2: A calibrated visual metric for visibility and quality predictions in all luminance conditions. ACM Trans. Graph. 30(4), 1–14 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Hanhart, P., Bernardo, M.V., Pereira, M., Pinheiro, A.M., Ebrahimi, T.: Benchmarking of objective quality metrics for HDR image quality assessment. EURASIP J. Image Video Process. 1, 1–18 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  33. Sharma, G., Wu, W., Dalal, E.N.: The CIEDE2000 color-difference formula: Implementation notes, supplementary test data, and mathematical observations. Color Res. Appl. 30(1), 21–30 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Reinhard, E., Stark, M., Shirley, P., Ferwerda, J.: Photographic tone reproduction for digital images. In: Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques, vol. 21, no. 3. ACM Transaction on Graphics, pp. 267–276 (2002)

  35. Peter, G.J.B.: Formula for the contrast sensitivity of the human eye. In: Proceedings of SPIE, vol. 5294 (2003)

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, under grant No. (UJ-21-ICI-17). The authors, therefore, acknowledge with thanks the University of Jeddah technical and financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering, Riphah International University, Islamabad, 44000, Pakistan

    Asif Siddiq & Jameel Ahmed

  2. College of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

    Monagi H. Alkinani & Ishtiaq Rasool Khan

Authors
  1. Asif Siddiq
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jameel Ahmed
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Monagi H. Alkinani
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ishtiaq Rasool Khan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Asif Siddiq.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Siddiq, A., Ahmed, J., Alkinani, M.H. et al. HDR image encoding using a companding-based nonlinear quantization approach without metadata. SIViP 16, 1981–1990 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-022-02159-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-022-02159-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation