Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography using a Modulo Camera

Hang Zhao1   Boxin Shi1,3   Christy Fernandez-Cull2   Sai-Kit Yeung3   Ramesh Raskar1  

1 MIT Media Lab    2MIT Lincoln Lab    3SUTD   

ICCP 2015, Houston, TX   [Best Paper runner-up]   

Abstract

This paper presents a novel framework to extend the dynamic range of images called Unbounded High Dynamic Range (UHDR) photography with a modulo camera. A modulo camera could theoretically take unbounded radiance levels by keeping only the least significant bits. We show that with limited bit depth, very high radiance levels can be recovered from a single modulus image with our newly proposed unwrapping algorithm for natural images. We can also obtain an HDR image with details equally well preserved for all radiance levels by merging the least number of modulus images. Synthetic experiment and experiment with a real modulo camera show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Keywords

  • High Dynamic Range (HDR) Imaging
  • Modulo Camera
  • Video

    Demo

    Files

  • Technical Paper: [PDF]
  • Poster: [PDF]
  • In the News

    English: [MIT Media Lab]: A Camera that Never Saturates (Featured on Homepage!)

    [NBC News]: No More Overexposed Photos: MIT 'Modulo' Camera Never Blows Out

    [The Boston Globe]: A camera that can’t be overexposed? MIT team says it’s possible

    [SPIE Newsroom]: A camera that never overexposes an image

    [DP Review]:MIT proposes new approach to HDR with 'Modulo' camera

    [Slice of MIT]: Modulo Camera Rescues Overexposed Images

    [PetaPixel]: MIT Created a Camera That Will Never Overexpose a Photograph

    [Imaging Resource]: MIT researchers have developed a camera that will never overexpose an image

    [The Tech Report]: MIT researchers build an overexposure-proof HDR camera

    [Camyx]: MIT’s Modulo Camera will never capture overexposed photos

    [SLR Lounge]: MIT boffins have made a camera that will never overexpose an image

    [GizMag]: Photos with overexposed highlights could one day be a thing of the past

    [NDTV]: MIT Develops Real-Time HDR Camera, Algorithm to Prevent Overexposure

    [TechReport]: MIT researchers build an overexposure-proof HDR camera

    [SoftPedia]: MIT Researchers Develop a Camera That Never Overexposes Images

    中文: [麻省理工科技评论]: 新兴技术:不会过曝的相机 (图文)

    [腾讯]: 解决过曝,麻省理工学院成功实现单张照片HDR

    [中关村在线]: 解决过曝难题 MIT实验室开发余数相机

    More: [Times of India] [ePHOTOzine] [PictureCorrect]

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    [Tinhte.vn] [Heise.de] [Want.nl] [DigiFotoPro.nl] [Xataka] [FotoZona.it]

    Awards

    Bibtex

    @inproceedings{ICCP15_Zhao,
    author = "Hang Zhao and Boxin Shi and Christy Fernandez-Cull and Sai-Kit Yeung and Ramesh Raskar,
    title = "Unbounded High Dynamic Range Photography using a Modulo Camera",
    booktitle = "International Conference on Computational Photography (ICCP)",
    year = "2015"
    }

    Acknowledgments

    We would like to acknowledge Brian Tyrrell, Thomas Gardner, Julio Estrada, Amit Agrawal and Zhen Xie for their valuable insights and help.