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US 9,894,298 B1Granted
Low light image processing
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorMashhour Solh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Various embodiments provide a method of enhancing images in low lighting conditions wherein a color image is captured with a color camera, a first monochromatic image is captured with a first monochromatic camera, and a second monochromatic image is captured with a second monochromatic camera. Image registration is performed to align the first and second monochromatic images and the luminance information from the registered monochromatic images is fused with chrominance information from the color image.
Claims20
A computer-implemented method for enhancing images captured in low light, the method comprising:
- capturing, using a first monochromatic camera of a computing device, first monochromatic image data, the first monochromatic image data corresponding to a first monochromatic image, the first monochromatic camera having a first field of view;
- capturing, using a second monochromatic camera of the computing device, second monochromatic image data, the second monochromatic image data corresponding to a second monochromatic image, the second monochromatic camera having a second field of view and the second field of view at least partially overlapping the first field of view;
- capturing, using a color camera of the computing device, color image data, the color image data corresponding to a color image, the color camera having a third field of view and the third field of view at least partially overlapping the first field of view and the second field of view, and the first monochromatic image, the second monochromatic image and the color image each overlap in a common field of view;
- determining that an average luminance level of the color image data is below a threshold luminescence level;
- determining first registration data between the first monochromatic image data and the second monochromatic image data;
- upsampling the first registration data from a first size to match a second size of the color image data;
- removing a portion of at least one of the color image data or the first registration data corresponding to pixels located outside of the common field of view;
- determining second registration data between the first registration data and the color image data for the common field of view;
- removing first luminance data from the color image data to generate chrominance data;
- refining color information associated with the chrominance data using texture data from the second registration data;
- refining the second registration data using the second registration data as a second guide to generate second luminance data;
- combining the chrominance image data from the color image data with the second luminance data from the second registration data of the first monochromatic image data and the second monochromatic image data to generate fused image data;
- and
- displaying an image corresponding to the fused image data on a display screen of the computing device.
11 more elements
A method comprising:
- obtaining, by a computing device, first image data using a color image sensor;
- obtaining, by the computing device, second image data using a monochromatic image sensor;
- determining, by the computing device, registration data between the first image data and the second image data;
- applying, by the computing device, a first guided filter on the first image data using the registration data as a guide to generate chrominance image data;
- applying, by the computing device, a second guided filter on the second image data to generate luminance image data;
- combining, by the computing device, the chrominance image data and the luminance image data to generate fused image data;
- and
- displaying, by the computing device, the fused image data on a display screen.
5 more elements
A computing device, comprising:
- a processor;
- a first monochromatic camera;
- a second monochromatic camera;
- a color camera;
- a display screen;
- and
- memory including instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the computing device to:
- capture first mono image data using the first monochromatic camera;
- capture second mono image data using the second monochromatic camera;
- capture color image data using a color camera;
- determine first registration data between the first mono image data and the second mono image data;
- determine second registration data between the first registration data and the color image data;
- remove first luminance data from the color image data to generate chrominance data;
- apply a first guided filter to the chrominance data using the second registration data as a guide to generate chrominance image data;
- apply an averaging filter to the second registration data to generate second luminance image data;
- combine the chrominance image data and the second luminance image data to generate fused image data;
- and
- display an image corresponding to the fused image data on the display screen.
15 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.