AUTOMATED TONAL BALANCING

• US 20150324988A1
• Filed: 05/08/2015
• Published: 11/12/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Maxar Intelligence Incorporated (Galileo Parent, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: DigitalGlobe, Inc. (Galileo Parent, Inc.)
• Inventors: Swanson, Nathan Reid, Young, Patrick, Stirling, Spencer
• Granted Patent: US 9,589,334 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/32 involving image mosaicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10032 Satellite or aerial image; Remote sensing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20008 Globally adaptive
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20012 Locally adaptive
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20208 High dynamic range [HDR] image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30181 Earth observation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/73 Deblurring; Sharpening
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/92 based on global image properties
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/94 based on local image properties, e.g. for local contrast enhancement

Abstract

A system for automated tonal balancing, comprising a rectification server that groups and processes images for use in tone-matching and provides them to a tone-matching server, that then performs tone-matching operations on the images and provides them as output for review or storage, and methods for tonal balancing using the system of the invention.

Claims

1. A system for automated tonal balancing, comprising:

a rectification server computer comprising program code stored in a memory and adapted to analyze and operate on input images to prepare them for tonal balancing, and to provide those images to other components of the system;

a tone balancing server computer comprising program code stored in a memory and adapted to perform grouping and tone-balancing operations on sets of input images, and to provide the images and tone-balancing results to other components of the system;

a raw image database computer comprising program code stored in a memory and adapted to store and provide unmodified images and image information to other components of the system; and

a balanced image database computer comprising program code stored in a memory and adapted to store and provide tone-balanced images and image information to other components of the system.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising a display screen device adapted to present image information for review by a human user.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the image information comprises raw images.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the image information comprises tone-balanced images.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the image information further comprises raw images for comparison with the tone-balanced images.

6. A method for performing tonal balancing on groups of images, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a rectification server, a plurality of input images;

classifying each of the images as an image group;

performing, using a tone-balancing server, a grouping and balancing operation on the image groups;

updating, using the rectification server, the input images with tone-balancing results;

computing, using the tone-balancing server, an alternate tonal balance for remaining images; and

providing the resulting balanced images as output.

7. The method of claim 6, further comprising the step of repeating a grouping and balancing operation until no image groups remain.

8. A method for grouping and balancing images, comprising the steps of:

receiving, at a tone-balancing server, a plurality of input image groups;

selecting an initial image group;

adding the images of the initial group to a new group and removing them from the plurality of input image groups;

examining images neighboring the initial group for tonal statistics, and adding images with sufficient statistics to the new group and removing them from the plurality of input image groups;

performing tonal balancing on the new group;

adding the new group to a plurality of output image groups; and

providing the resulting balanced images as output.

9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the step of repeating operation from the selection of an initial group, until no input image groups remain.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the output further comprises tone-balancing information not contained within the images themselves.