The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 06, 2005
Filed:
Apr. 30, 2001
Ronny Kimmel, Haifa, IL;
Michael Elad, Haifa, IL;
Doron Shaked, Haifa, IL;
Renato Keshet, Haifa, IL;
Irwin Sobel, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Ronny Kimmel, Haifa, IL;
Michael Elad, Haifa, IL;
Doron Shaked, Haifa, IL;
Renato Keshet, Haifa, IL;
Irwin Sobel, Menlo Park, CA (US);
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
A system and a method solve the estimation problem of finding reflectance R and illumination L. The system and method to solve a functional of the unknown illumination L such that a minimum of the functional is assumed to yield a good estimate of the illumination L. Having a good estimate of the illumination L implies a good estimate of the reflectance R. The functional uses a variational framework to express requirements for the optimal solution. The requirements include: 1) that the illumination L is spatially smooth; 2) that the reflectance values are in the interval [0,1] —thus, when decomposing the image S, the solution should satisfy the constraint L>S; 3) that among all possible solutions, the estimate of the illumination L should be as close as possible to the image S, so that the contrast of the obtained R is maximal; and 4) that the reflectance R complies with typical natural image behavior (e.g., the reflectance is piece-wise smooth).