Generalized mosaicing: polarization panorama

• Published in: IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 631 - 636
• Main Authors: Schechner, Y.Y., Nayar, S.K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Alamitos, CA IEEE 01-04-2005; IEEE Computer Society; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Animals; Applied sciences; Artificial Intelligence; Attenuation; biology-inspired; Cameras; Cluster Analysis; color; Computer science; control theory; systems; Dynamic range; Dynamical systems; Dynamics; Exact sciences and technology; Field of view; Filtering; Filters; illumination; Image Enhancement - methods; image fusion; Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted - methods; Index Terms- Mosaicing; Information Storage and Retrieval - methods; Layout; Mosaics; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Pattern recognition. Digital image processing. Computational geometry; physics-based vision; Polarization; Radiometry; Reflection; Refractometry - methods; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity and Specificity; Subtraction Technique; transparent layers; Polarization; transparent layers; Panoramic photography; color; physics-based vision; Biology; biology-inspired; Imaging; Mosaicing; Illumination; Mosaicism; Polarimetry; Image fusion
• ISSN: 0162-8828; 1939-3539
• DOI: 10.1109/TPAMI.2005.79

We present an approach to image the polarization state of object points in a wide field of view, while enhancing the radiometric dynamic range of imaging systems by generalizing image mosaicing. The approach is biologically inspired, as it emulates spatially varying polarization sensitivity of some animals. In our method, a spatially varying polarization and attenuation filter is rigidly attached to a camera. As the system moves, it senses each scene point multiple times, each time filtering it through a different filter polarizing angle, polarizance, and transmittance. Polarization is an additional dimension of the generalized mosaicing paradigm, which has recently yielded high dynamic range images and multispectral images in a wide field of view using other kinds of filters. The image acquisition is as easy as in traditional image mosaics. The computational algorithm can easily handle nonideal polarization filters (partial polarizers), variable exposures, and saturation in a single framework. The resulting mosaic represents the polarization state at each scene point. Using data acquired by this method, we demonstrate attenuation and enhancement of specular reflections and semi reflection separation in an image mosaic.