Encoding, decoding, and representing high dynamic range images

• US 9,819,938 B2
• Filed: 04/07/2017
• Issued: 11/14/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corporation (Dolby Laboratories Incorporated)
• Inventors: Jia, Wenhui, Ninan, Ajit, Ten, Arkady, Ward, Gregory John
• Primary Examiner(s): Tran, Nhan T
• Application Number:
  US15/482,689
• Publication Number:
  US 20170214917A1
• Time in Patent Office: 221 Days
• Field of Search: 3482221, 348 2, 348234, 348235, 3482231
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 9/00 Image coding bandwidth or redundancy reduction for static pictures H04N1/41; coding or decoding of static colour picture signals H04N1/64; methods or arrangements for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/124 Quantisation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/136 Incoming video signal characteristics or properties
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/169 characterised by the coding unit, i.e. the structural portion or semantic portion of the video signal being the object or the subject of the adaptive coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/182 the unit being a pixel
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/186 the unit being a colour or a chrominance component
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/30 using hierarchical techniques, e.g. scalability H04N19/63 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/44 Decoders specially adapted therefor, e.g. video decoders which are asymmetric with respect to the encoder
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/50 using predictive coding H04N19/61 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/70 characterised by syntax aspects related to video coding, e.g. related to compression standards
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/741 by increasing the dynamic range of the image compared to the dynamic range of the electronic image sensors
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/67 for matrixing camera processing pipelines for matrixing of colour signals H04N23/85
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 9/77 Circuits for processing the brightness signal and the chrominance signal relative to each other, e.g. adjusting the phase of the brightness signal relative to the colour signal, correcting differential gain or differential phase circuits for matrixing H04N9/67

Abstract

Techniques are provided to encode and decode image data comprising a tone mapped (TM) image with HDR reconstruction data in the form of luminance ratios and color residual values. In an example embodiment, luminance ratio values and residual values in color channels of a color space are generated on an individual pixel basis based on a high dynamic range (HDR) image and a derivative tone-mapped (TM) image that comprises one or more color alterations that would not be recoverable from the TM image with a luminance ratio image. The TM image with HDR reconstruction data derived from the luminance ratio values and the color-channel residual values may be outputted in an image file to a downstream device, for example, for decoding, rendering, and/or storing. The image file may be decoded to generate a restored HDR image free of the color alterations.

Claims

1. A processor non-transitory readable medium having stored thereon an image file structure for representing a high dynamic range image in a compressed format, the image file structure comprising:

a compressed tone-mapped image in a standard-based compression format; and

high dynamic range (HDR) reconstruction data, wherein the HDR reconstruction data comprise;

a quantized luma ratio image comprising log ratio pixel values;

luma de-quantization parameters for the quantized log ratio pixel values;

one or more sets of quantized residual chroma values; and

chroma de-quantization parameters for the one or more sets of quantized residual chroma values, wherein the compressed tone-mapped image is separated by the HDR reconstruction data using one or more application markers.

2. The processor non-transitory readable medium of claim 1, wherein the log ratio pixel values represent the logarithm of dividing, on an individual pixel basis, luminance values of an HDR input image with luminance values of an uncompressed version of the compressed tone-mapped image.

3. The processor non-transitory readable medium of claim 1, wherein the luma de-quantization parameters comprise a minimum log ratio pixel value and a maximum log ratio pixel value.

4. The processor non-transitory readable medium of claim 1, wherein the chroma de-quantization parameters comprise

a minimum residual chroma pixel value (Cb_min) and a maximum residual chroma pixel value (Cb_max).

5. The processor non-transitory readable medium of claim 2, wherein the compressed tone-mapped image comprises a compressed tone-mapped image generated from the HDR input image.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the standard-based compression format is the JPEG format.

7. A method for decoding high-dynamic range images with a processor, the method comprising:

receiving a coded bitstream comprising a high-dynamic range image encoded according to the file structure in claim 1;

parsing the coded bitstream to extract the compressed tone-mapped image and the HDR reconstruction data;

generating a decoded base image based on the compressed tone-mapped image;

extracting the luma de-quantization parameters from the HDR reconstruction data;

extracting the quantized luma ratio image;

generating a dequantized luma ratio image based on the quantized luma ratio image and the luma de-quantization parameters;

extracting the chroma de-quantization parameters;

extracting the one or more sets of quantized residual chroma values;

generating one or more sets of dequantized residual chroma values based on the chroma de-quantization parameters and the one or more sets of quantized residual chroma values;

linearizing the dequantized luma ratio image to generate a linearized luma ratio image; and

generating an output HDR image based on the one or more sets of dequantized residual chroma values, the linearized luma ratio image, and the decoded base image.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein generating the output HDR image further comprises:

generating an intermediate image by adding the one or more sets of dequantized residual chroma values to the decoded base image; and

generating the output HDR image by multiplying the intermediate image with the linearized luma ratio image.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein given a quantized log ratio pixel value H, a corresponding unquantized log ratio luma value lr is determined as

10. The method of claim 7, wherein given a quantized residual chroma pixel value U, a corresponding intermediate residual chroma pixel value Cb is determined as

11. The method of claim 7, wherein linearizing the dequantized luma ratio image comprises applying an inverse logarithm function to pixels of the dequantized luma ratio image.

12. The method of claim 7, further comprising applying a color space conversion and gamma decoding to the decoded base image to generate a gamma-decoded base image;

and

generating the output HDR image based on the one or more sets of dequantized residual chroma values, the linearized luma ratio image, and the gamma-decoded base image.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising applying a color space conversion to the dequantized residual chroma values to generate color-transformed residual chroma values;

and

generating the output HDR image based on the one or more sets of color-transformed residual chroma values, the linearized luma ratio image, and the gamma-decoded base image.