Binocular Tone Mapping Framework for Visual Content Preservation
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing binocular display systems only utilize the additional image domain for stereopsis, failing to effectively combine images with differences in detail, contrast, and luminance, leading to viewing discomfort and loss of visual content, while existing metrics cannot assess binocular viewing comfort for images presented to both eyes.
Innovation Solution
A computer-based graphics imaging system employs an optimization-based binocular tone mapping framework that generates low-dynamic range (LDR) image pairs using a binocular viewing comfort predictor (BVCP) metric to enhance visual content and avoid discomfort, by synthesizing image pairs from a single high dynamic range (HDR) image, maximizing visual information content.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If existing binocular display systems present different images to left and right eyes for stereopsis, then depth perception is achieved, but viewing discomfort occurs and visual content is lost due to failure to effectively combine images with differences in detail, contrast, and luminance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges two different LDR images into a single binocular percept by presenting them to left and right eyes respectively. The human visual system naturally fuses these two images into one unified percept, effectively combining visual content from both images while avoiding the need for complex computational merging algorithms.
Solution Approach 2:
The human visual system acts as an intermediary that performs non-linear fusion of the two LDR images. This biological mediator combines images with differences in detail, contrast, and luminance into a single percept, preserving more visual content than either image alone while avoiding viewing discomfort through natural neural processing.
2Illumination intensity
If tone mapping is used to present HDR content on LDR display, then HDR content can be displayed, but there is a tension between displaying large-scale contrast and fine-scale details
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the visual content by creating two different LDR images with different tone mapping parameters. One image optimizes for large-scale contrast while the other preserves fine-scale details. The human visual system then fuses these segmented representations into a unified percept that contains both types of information.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent adds the binocular dimension to resolve the contrast-detail tension. By presenting two differently tone-mapped images to left and right eyes respectively, the system utilizes the additional binocular dimension to preserve both large-scale contrast and fine-scale details in the fused percept, overcoming the limitations of single-image tone mapping.
3Loss of information
If binocular display systems present two different images to both eyes, then more visual content can be perceived, but existing metrics cannot assess binocular viewing comfort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces complex computational metrics for assessing binocular viewing comfort with the human visual system itself. Instead of using artificial algorithms to measure comfort, the system relies on the biological visual system's natural ability to fuse images and indicate comfort through the quality of the fused percept.
Data Source
AI summary
In a computer-based graphics imaging system, binocular tone mapping is employed with an optimization-based framework to generate a binocular single vision image with more visual richness than a single tone-mapped image, the binocular tone mapping being guided by a binocular viewing comfort predictor (BVCP) metric in order to assure stable formation of binocularly tone-mapped image pairs, so that visual information content of the image pair can be maximized without triggering visual discomfort.