Interactive Shadow Removal and Ground Truth for Variable Scene Categories

We present an interactive, robust and high quality method for fast shadow removal. To perform detection we use an on-the-fly learning approach guided by two rough user inputs for the pixels of the shadow and the lit area. From this we derive a fusion image that magnifies shadow boundary intensity change due to illumination variation. After detection, we perform shadow removal by registering the penumbra to a normalised frame which allows us to efficiently estimate non-uniform shadow illumination changes, resulting in accurate and robust removal. We also present the first reliable, validated and multi-scene category ground truth for shadow removal algorithms which overcomes limitations in existing data sets -- such as inconsistencies between shadow and shadow-free images and limited variations of shadows. Using our data, we perform the most thorough comparison of state of the art shadow removal methods to date. Our algorithm outperforms the state of the art, and we supply our P-code and evaluation data and scripts to encourage future open comparisons

Interactive removal and ground truth for difficult shadow scenes

A user-centric method for fast, interactive, robust, and high-quality shadow removal is presented. Our algorithm can perform detection and removal in a range of difficult cases, such as highly textured and colored shadows. To perform detection, an on-the-fly learning approach is adopted guided by two rough user inputs for the pixels of the shadow and the lit area. After detection, shadow removal is performed by registering the penumbra to a normalized frame, which allows us efficient estimation of nonuniform shadow illumination changes, resulting in accurate and robust removal. Another major contribution of this work is the first validated and multiscene category ground truth for shadow removal algorithms. This data set containing 186 images eliminates inconsistencies between shadow and shadow-free images and provides a range of different shadow types such as soft, textured, colored, and broken shadow. Using this data, the most thorough comparison of state-of-the-art shadow removal methods to date is performed, showing our proposed algorithm to outperform the state of the art across several measures and shadow categories. To complement our data set, an online shadow removal benchmark website is also presented to encourage future open comparisons in this challenging field of research

Mask-ShadowGAN: Learning to Remove Shadows from Unpaired Data

This paper presents a new method for shadow removal using unpaired data, enabling us to avoid tedious annotations and obtain more diverse training samples. However, directly employing adversarial learning and cycle-consistency constraints is insufficient to learn the underlying relationship between the shadow and shadow-free domains, since the mapping between shadow and shadow-free images is not simply one-to-one. To address the problem, we formulate Mask-ShadowGAN, a new deep framework that automatically learns to produce a shadow mask from the input shadow image and then takes the mask to guide the shadow generation via re-formulated cycle-consistency constraints. Particularly, the framework simultaneously learns to produce shadow masks and learns to remove shadows, to maximize the overall performance. Also, we prepared an unpaired dataset for shadow removal and demonstrated the effectiveness of Mask-ShadowGAN on various experiments, even it was trained on unpaired data.Comment: Accepted to ICCV 201

User-Assisted Image Shadow Removal

This paper presents a novel user-aided method for texture-preserving shadow removal from single images requiring simple user input. Compared with the state-of-the-art, our algorithm offers the most flexible user interaction to date and produces more accurate and robust shadow removal under thorough quantitative evaluation. Shadow masks are first detected by analysing user specified shadow feature strokes. Sample intensity profiles with variable interval and length around the shadow boundary are detected next, which avoids artefacts raised from uneven boundaries. Texture noise in samples is then removed by applying local group bilateral filtering, and initial sparse shadow scales are estimated by fitting a piece-wise curve to intensity samples. The remaining errors in estimated sparse scales are removed by local group smoothing. To relight the image, a dense scale field is produced by in-painting the sparse scales. Finally, a gradual colour correction is applied to remove artefacts due to image post-processing. Using state-of-the-art evaluation data, we quantitatively and qualitatively demonstrate our method to outperform current leading shadow removal methods

Static scene illumination estimation from video with applications

We present a system that automatically recovers scene geometry and illumination from a video, providing a basis for various applications. Previous image based illumination estimation methods require either user interaction or external information in the form of a database. We adopt structure-from-motion and multi-view stereo for initial scene reconstruction, and then estimate an environment map represented by spherical harmonics (as these perform better than other bases). We also demonstrate several video editing applications that exploit the recovered geometry and illumination, including object insertion (e.g., for augmented reality), shadow detection, and video relighting