Adaptive Logarithmic Mapping For Displaying High Contrast Scenes

BigI


Abstact

We propose a fast, high quality tone mapping technique to display high contrast images on devices with limited dynamic range of luminance values. The method is based on logarithmic compression of luminance values, imitating the human response to light. A bias power function is introduced to adaptively vary logarithmic bases, resulting in good preservation of details and contrast. To improve contrast in dark areas, changes to the gamma correction procedure are proposed. Our adaptive logarithmic mapping technique is capable of producing perceptually tuned images with high dynamic content and works at interactive speed. We demonstrate a successful application of our tone mapping technique with a high dynamic range video player enabling to adjust optimal viewing conditions for any kind of display while taking into account user preference concerning brightness, contrast compression, and detail reproduction.

Resources

pdf icon The Paper
Image comparison with other tone mapping techniques.
Source code and executable compiled on Linux, but portable to any platform without much change.
Interactive viewer. Executable for Linux and Windows.
HDR movie builder and player. Executable for Linux and Windows. Only the software based implementation for now. Described in the paper, these tools permit to build an HDR movie file and play it while adjusting various tone mapping parameters.

Some original radiance maps used in the paper. Save in the RGBE format.
1016x768, University of Aizu, Atrium Morning. 1016x768, University of Aizu, Atrium Night. 698x1860, Koriyama city, BigI building, Japan. Also 1396x3720 16Mb.

Contact

Frederic Drago
Karol Myszkowski
Thomas Annen
Norishige Chiba