Wide-Angle Image Compositing Reducing Halation and Black Collapse
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing methods for generating wide-angle images through image composition often result in halation and black collapse, and require significant memory resources, making them inefficient for inexpensive image processing apparatuses.
Innovation Solution
An image processing apparatus that obtains images with different exposure values, detects overlapping areas, computes composition ratios, and composites images in a controlled manner to generate a wide-angle composite image without excessive memory usage, reducing halation and black collapse.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of moving object
If images are composited by connecting photographed images with alignment coordinates to expand angle of view, then wide-angle composite image covering extremely wide angle of view can be generated, but halation and black collapse may be included in the image
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies parameter changes by adjusting exposure values across multiple photographed images. By capturing images at different exposure levels (underexposed, properly exposed, and overexposed) and compositing them, the system expands the dynamic range to prevent halation and black collapse while maintaining wide angle of view. This transforms the exposure parameter to resolve the contradiction between wide coverage and image quality.
2Loss of information
If wide-angle composite images at different exposure values are generated by compositing images photographed at the same exposure value, then dynamic range is expanded, but lots of memory is needed for storing intermediate images
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the image composition process into sequential steps where intermediate results are not stored in memory. Instead of generating and storing complete wide-angle composite images at each exposure level, the system processes images in a pipeline fashion, computing composition ratios and compositing images on-the-fly. This segmentation approach expands dynamic range while minimizing memory requirements by avoiding storage of intermediate composite images.
3Manufacturing precision
If multiple intermediate wide-angle composite images are stored during compositing process, then high quality wide-angle composite image can be generated, but inexpensive image processing apparatus without lots of memory may slow image-composition velocity or cannot execute image composition
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-computing and storing composition ratios in a lookup table before the actual image compositing process. This preliminary preparation allows the main processing to proceed with minimal memory usage during runtime, as only compact ratio data needs to be stored rather than full intermediate images. This enables high-quality image composition on inexpensive apparatus with limited memory capacity.
Data Source
AI summary
An image processing apparatus that is capable of generating a wide-angle composite image in which halation and black collapse are reduced without needing lots of memory quantity. An obtaining unit obtains images that are photographed with different exposure values while changing a photographing target area continuously. A detection unit detects an overlapped area where an object overlaps between adjacent images among the images obtained by the obtaining unit. A generation unit generates a composite area in which overlapped areas detected by the detection unit are overlapped so as not to exceed a predetermined count. A computation unit computes composition ratios of the images obtained by the obtaining unit based on the exposure values and signal values at the times when the images are photographed. A composition unit generates a wide-angle composite image by compositing images in the composite area with the composition ratios computed.