Video Enhancement Using
Per-Pixel Virtual Exposures

Department of Computer Science The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC

Abstract

We enhance underexposed, low dynamic range videos by adaptively and independently varying the exposure at each photoreceptor in a post-process. This virtual exposure is a dynamic function of both the spatial neighborhood and temporal history at each pixel. Temporal integration enables us to expand the image's dynamic range while simultaneously reducing noise. Our non-linear exposure variation and denoising filters smoothly transition from temporal to spatial for moving scene elements. Our virtual exposure framework also supports temporally coherent per frame tone mapping. Our system outputs restored video sequences with significantly reduced noise, increased exposure time of dark pixels, intact motion, and improved details.

People

Eric P. Bennett & Leonard McMillan

Paper

Eric P. Bennett and Leonard McMillan "Video Enhancement Using Per-Pixel Virtual Exposures", SIGGRAPH 2005 (Los Angeles, CA)
SIGGRAPH Pre-Print PDF (7 MB)

Video

SIGGRAPH Supplemental Video (MPEG-4, 187 MB)
This video is encoded with MPEG-4 in Apple QuickTime, available here.

Contact

If you are interested in further details of our video enhancement techniques, please contact Eric Bennett.