Adaptive low-light image processing

• US 7,489,829 B2
• Filed: 03/11/2004
• Issued: 02/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2003
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP PTE Limited (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Sightic Vista Limited
• Inventors: Arshavsky, Yuri, Vitsnudel, Ilia, Sorek, Noam
• Primary Examiner(s): Kassa; Yosef
• Application Number:
  US10/799,127
• Publication Number:
  US 20040179108A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,797 Days
• Field of Search: 382/260, 382/274, 382/275, 382/283, 358/3.26, 358/3.27, 358/463, 348/154, 348/155, 348/251
• US Class Current: 382/260
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10016 Video; Image sequence
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20182 Noise reduction or smoothing in the temporal domain; Spatio-temporal filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20201 Motion blur correction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/20 using local operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/50 using two or more images, e.g. averaging or subtraction
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/73 Deblurring; Sharpening
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/20 Analysis of motion motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/144 Movement detection for video coding H04N19/503; analysis of motion in general G06T7/20
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 5/21 Circuitry for suppressing or minimising disturbance, e.g. moiré or halo

Abstract

A method for enhancing imaging in low light conditions, comprising: acquiring image data relating to a plurality of consecutive images; determining a local motion factor relating to the consecutive images by specifically processing the consecutive images in a predetermined manner in order to obtain an image mask that represents information about local motion; and processing the consecutive images, incorporating the image mask, to obtain final usable image information.

Claims

1. A method for enhancing imaging in low light conditions, comprising:

acquiring image data relating to a plurality of consecutive images;

applying spatial and temporal filtering to a signal corresponding to the acquired image data;

detecting local motion indication in the filtered image data;

filtering the detected local motion indication;

using a look up table, said look up table assigning greater weights to areas of greater local motion indication and lower weights to areas of smaller local motion indication, to obtain a local motion factor; and

producing final image data by combining the acquired image data with a temporally filtered signal of the acquired image data using the local motion factor.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of consecutive images are acquired in different acquisition conditions.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of consecutive images are acquired using different exposure times.

4. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of consecutive images are acquired using different aperture.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of consecutive images are acquired using different focusing distance.

6. The method of claim 1, carried out in an image domain.

7. The method of claim 1, carried out in a compressed image domain.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the compressed image domain is JPEG or MPEG.

9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the signal corresponding to the acquired image data comprises a luminance signal extracted from the acquired image data.

10. The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein the luminance signal is obtained by performing color desaturation.