Image Recovery Using Coded Light Flickering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for removing motion blur from images captured by normal cameras are inefficient, often resulting in degraded image quality due to increased noise, the need for additional high-speed shutters or lighting devices, and difficulties in matching pattern lengths with motion blur, especially in varying illuminance environments.
Innovation Solution
An image recovering method and apparatus that utilize a signal generator to determine a random flickering pattern based on illuminance and speed information, synchronizing it with a lighting unit and camera to predict and correct for ambient light degradation, employing a point spread function (PSF) pattern to improve image recovery without additional camera devices.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If a high speed camera with a fast frame rate is utilized to solve motion blur, then a clear texture image may be acquired, but the exposure time is short so that the brightness of the entire image is dark and the influence of noise is relatively increased, degrading image quality
Solution Approach 1:
A coded light source is introduced as an intermediary between the scene and the camera. This light source flickers at high speed according to a predetermined pattern, actively illuminating the moving object during exposure. The camera captures the object modulated by this coded illumination, allowing motion blur recovery without requiring extremely short exposure times, thus maintaining adequate image brightness while still achieving clear texture recovery through pattern-based processing.
2Measurement precision
If a shutter is added which flickers at a high speed in front of a general camera to control the shutter timing, then image recovery may be achieved, but a high speed operating shutter which is synchronized with a shutter timing of the camera needs to be added so that it is difficult to reduce the size of the entire system
Solution Approach 1:
The shutter control function is extracted from the camera system and transferred to an external coded light source. Instead of adding a complex high-speed mechanical shutter synchronized with the camera, the invention uses a light source that flickers according to a predetermined pattern to encode temporal information. This eliminates the need for complex synchronized shutter mechanisms while achieving the same image recovery objective through optical encoding rather than mechanical control.
3Measurement precision
If a coded light source which operates at a high speed separately from the general camera is added, then recovering performance may be improved at a low illuminance, but in a general illuminance environment, the influence of ambient light other than the coded light source is increased so that when the image is recovered with a pattern used to control the coded light source, the image may be degraded due to the added ambient light component
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adapts to different illuminance conditions by adjusting the coded light source operation. In low illuminance environments, the coded light source is activated to provide active illumination with a predetermined flickering pattern for optimal recovery performance. In general illuminance environments, the system can reduce or disable the coded light source to minimize ambient light interference, or adjust the pattern length and frequency to match the motion characteristics while filtering out ambient light components through the established recovery algorithm.
4Device complexity
If a pattern used to control the shutter or the lighting device is added with an arbitrarily determined length, then the system may be simplified, but when the image is recovered in order to match the length of the pattern and the length of motion blur, a process of extending or reducing the image by one of interpolation and decimation is inevitably accompanied, degrading the image recovering performance
Solution Approach 1:
The system dynamically adjusts the pattern length parameter of the coded light source to match the motion blur characteristics of the captured image. By changing the pattern length parameter based on the specific imaging conditions and motion speed, the system eliminates the need for post-processing interpolation or decimation operations. This parameter adaptation ensures optimal recovery performance without requiring image extension or reduction processes, resolving the contradiction between fixed pattern simplicity and recovery quality.
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a method of recovering an image from which a motion blur is removed and an image recovering apparatus and the image recovering apparatus according to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure includes a signal generator which receives at least one of illuminance information and speed information from a sensor to determine a random flickering pattern and a triggering signal based on the received signal, output the determined random flickering pattern to a lighting unit, and output the triggering signal to a camera; and an image processor which receives an image including a motion blur from the camera to recover the received image based on the random flickering pattern determined by the signal generator.