16,305 research outputs found
Colour Constancy: Biologically-inspired Contrast Variant Pooling Mechanism
Pooling is a ubiquitous operation in image processing algorithms that allows
for higher-level processes to collect relevant low-level features from a region
of interest. Currently, max-pooling is one of the most commonly used operators
in the computational literature. However, it can lack robustness to outliers
due to the fact that it relies merely on the peak of a function. Pooling
mechanisms are also present in the primate visual cortex where neurons of
higher cortical areas pool signals from lower ones. The receptive fields of
these neurons have been shown to vary according to the contrast by aggregating
signals over a larger region in the presence of low contrast stimuli. We
hypothesise that this contrast-variant-pooling mechanism can address some of
the shortcomings of max-pooling. We modelled this contrast variation through a
histogram clipping in which the percentage of pooled signal is inversely
proportional to the local contrast of an image. We tested our hypothesis by
applying it to the phenomenon of colour constancy where a number of popular
algorithms utilise a max-pooling step (e.g. White-Patch, Grey-Edge and
Double-Opponency). For each of these methods, we investigated the consequences
of replacing their original max-pooling by the proposed
contrast-variant-pooling. Our experiments on three colour constancy benchmark
datasets suggest that previous results can significantly improve by adopting a
contrast-variant-pooling mechanism
Color Constancy Using CNNs
In this work we describe a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to accurately
predict the scene illumination. Taking image patches as input, the CNN works in
the spatial domain without using hand-crafted features that are employed by
most previous methods. The network consists of one convolutional layer with max
pooling, one fully connected layer and three output nodes. Within the network
structure, feature learning and regression are integrated into one optimization
process, which leads to a more effective model for estimating scene
illumination. This approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on a standard
dataset of RAW images. Preliminary experiments on images with spatially varying
illumination demonstrate the stability of the local illuminant estimation
ability of our CNN.Comment: Accepted at DeepVision: Deep Learning in Computer Vision 2015 (CVPR
2015 workshop
Chromatic Illumination Discrimination Ability Reveals that Human Colour Constancy Is Optimised for Blue Daylight Illuminations
The phenomenon of colour constancy in human visual perception keeps surface colours constant, despite changes in their reflected light due to changing illumination. Although colour constancy has evolved under a constrained subset of illuminations, it is unknown whether its underlying mechanisms, thought to involve multiple components from retina to cortex, are optimised for particular environmental variations. Here we demonstrate a new method for investigating colour constancy using illumination matching in real scenes which, unlike previous methods using surface matching and simulated scenes, allows testing of multiple, real illuminations. We use real scenes consisting of solid familiar or unfamiliar objects against uniform or variegated backgrounds and compare discrimination performance for typical illuminations from the daylight chromaticity locus (approximately blue-yellow) and atypical spectra from an orthogonal locus (approximately red-green, at correlated colour temperature 6700 K), all produced in real time by a 10-channel LED illuminator. We find that discrimination of illumination changes is poorer along the daylight locus than the atypical locus, and is poorest particularly for bluer illumination changes, demonstrating conversely that surface colour constancy is best for blue daylight illuminations. Illumination discrimination is also enhanced, and therefore colour constancy diminished, for uniform backgrounds, irrespective of the object type. These results are not explained by statistical properties of the scene signal changes at the retinal level. We conclude that high-level mechanisms of colour constancy are biased for the blue daylight illuminations and variegated backgrounds to which the human visual system has typically been exposed
Lightness constancy: ratio invariance and luminance profile
The term simultaneous lightness constancy describes the capacity of the visual system to perceive equal reflecting
surfaces as having the same lightness despite lying in different illumination fields. In some cases, however, a
lightness constancy failure occurs; that is, equal reflecting surfaces appear different in lightness when differently illuminated. An open question is whether the luminance profile of the illumination edges affects simultaneous lightness constancy even when the ratio invariance property of the illumination edges is preserved. To explore this issue, we ran two experiments by using bipartite illumination displays. Both the luminance profile of an illumination edge and the luminance ratio amplitude between the illumination fields were manipulated. Results revealed that the simultaneous lightness constancy increases when the luminance profile of the illumination edge is gradual (rather than sharp) and homogeneous (rather than inhomogeneous), whereas it decreases when the luminance
ratio between the illumination fields is enlarged. The results are interpreted according to the layer decomposition
schema, stating that the visual system splits the luminance into perceived lightness and apparent illumination
components. We suggest that illumination edges having gradual and homogeneous luminance profiles facilitate
the luminance decomposition process, whereas wide luminance ratios impede it
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