Abstract
In this paper, we present an approach to color image understanding that accounts for color variations due to highlights and shading. We demonstrate that the reflected light from every point on a dielectric object, such as plastic, can be described as a linear combination of the object color and the highlight color. The colors of all light rays reflected from one object then form a planar cluster in the color space. The shape of this cluster is determined by the object and highlight colors and by the object shape and illumination geometry. We present a method that exploits the difference between object color and highlight color to separate the color of every pixel into a matte component and a highlight component. This generates two intrinsic images, one showing the scene without highlights, and the other one showing only the highlights. The intrinsic images may be a useful tool for a variety of algorithms in computer vision, such as stereo vision, motion analysis, shape from shading, and shape from highlights. Our method combines the analysis of matte and highlight reflection with a sensor model that accounts for camera limitations. This enables us to successfully run our algorithm on real images taken in a laboratory setting. We show and discuss the results.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
D.H. Ballard and C.M. Brown,Computer Vision. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632, 1982.
P. Beckmann and A. Spizzichino,The Scattering of Electromagnetic Waves from Rough Surfaces. MacMillan: New York, 1963, pp. 1–33, 70–96.
J.D.E. Beynon and D.R. Lamb (eds.),Charge-coupled devices and their application. McGraw-Hill: London, 1980.
W. Budde,Optical Radiation Measurements. Volume 4:Physical Detectors of Optical Radiation. Academic Press: New York, 1983.
R.L. Cook and K.E. Torrance, “A reflectance model for computer graphics,”ACM Trans. Graphics 1(1): 7–24, January 1982. Also published in COMPUTER GRAPHICS 15(3), SIGGRAPH'81
M. D'Zmura and P. Lennie, “Mechanisms of color constancy,”J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A (JOSA-A), 3(10):1662–1672. October 1986.
L. Dreschler and H.-H. Nagel, “Volumetric model and 3D trajectory of a moving car derived from monocular TV frame Sequences of a Street Scene,”Comput. Graphics Image Process., 20:199–228, 1982.
R. Gershon, “The use of color in computational vision.” PhD thesis, Department of Computer Science, Univ. of Toronto, 1987.
R. Gershon, A.D. Jepson, and J.K. Tsotsos, “Highlight identification using chromatic information,” InProc. first Int. Conf. Computer Vision (ICCV), London, Computer Society Press (IEEE), June 8–11, 1987, pp. 161–171.
H. Grassmann, “On the theory of compound colors,”Phil. Mag., April 1854.
H.H. Harman,Modern Factor Analysis, 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 1967.
G. Healey and T.O. Binford, “Local shape from specularity,” In J.M. Brady and A. Rosenfeld (eds.),Proc. First Int. Conf. Computer Vision (ICCV), Computer Society Press (IEEE), London, June 8–11, 1987, pp. 151–161. Also appeared in DARPA-Image Understanding Workshop. Los Angeles, CA, February 1987, pp. 874–887.
G. Healey and T.O. Binford, “The role and use of color in a general vision system,” In L.S. Bauman (ed.),DARPA-Image Understanding (IUS) workshop, Los Angeles, CA, February 1987, pp. 599–613.
B.K.P. Horn, “Understanding image intensities,”Artifical Interlligence 8(11):201–231, 1977.
B.K.P. Horn, “Exact reproduction of colored images,”Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing (CVGIP) 26:135–167, 1984.
R.S. Hunter,The Measurement of Appearance Wiley: New York, 1975.
R.M. Johnston, “Geometric metamerism,”Color Engineering 5(3):42, May-June, 1967.
R.M. Johnston, “Color theory,”Pigment Handbook. Wiley: New York, 1974, pp. 229–287, ch. III-D-b.
D.B. Judd and G. Wyszecki,Color in Business, Science and Industry. Wiley, New York, 1975.
G.J. Klinker, S.A. Shafer, and T. Kanade, “Measurement of gloss from color images.” InInter-Society Color Council (ISCC) 87 Conf. on Appearance, Williamsburg, VA, February 8–11, 1987, pp. 9–12.
G.J. Klinker, S.A. Shafer, and T. Kanade, “Using a color reflection model to separate highlights from object color,” In J.M. Brady and A. Rosenfeld (ed.),Proc. First Int. Conf. Computer Vision (ICCV), Computer Society Press (IEEE), London, June 8–11, 1987, pp. 145–150. Also appeared in DARPA-Image Understanding Workshop, Los Angeles, CA, February 1987, pp. 614–619.
Y. LeClerc, “A Method for Spectral Linearization.” Private communication, 1986.
H.-C. Lee, “Method for computing the scene-illuminant chromaticity from specular highlights,”J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A (JOSA-A) 3(10):1694–1699, October 1986.
L.T. Maloney and B.A. Wandell, “Color constancy: a method for recovering surface spectral reflectance,”J. Opt. Soc. Amer. A (JOSA-A) 3(1):29–33, January 1986.
P. Moon, “A table of Fresnel reflection,”J. Math. Phys. 19(1), 1940.
F.E. Nicodemus, J.C. Richmond, J.J. Hsia, I.W. Ginsberg, and T. Limperis,Geometrical Considerations and Nomenclature for Reflectance, Tech. Report NBS Monograph 160, National Bureau of Standards, October 1977.
R. Ohlander, K. Price, and D.R. Reddy, “Picture segmentation using a recursive region splitting method,”Computer Graphics and Image Processing 8:313–333, 1978.
Y. Ohta, T. Kanade, and T. Sakai, “Color information for region segmentation,”Computer Graphics and Image Processing 13:222–231, 1980.
T. Pavlidis,Structural Pattern Recognition. Springer Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1977.
B.T. Phong. “Illumination for computer generated pictures,”Communications of the ACM 18:311–317, 1975.
J.M. Rubin and W.A. Richards, “Color vision and image intensities: When are changes material?”Biological Cybernetics 45:215–226, 1982.
S.A. Shafer, “Describing light mixtures through linear algebra,”J. Opt. Soc. Amer. (JOSA) 72(2):299–300, February 1982.
S.A. Shafer, “Optical phenomena in computer vision,”Canad. Soc. Computational Studies of Intelligence (CSCSI-84), Ontario, May 1984. Also available as Tech. Report TR-135, Computer Science Department, Univ. Rochester, March 1984.
S.A. Shafer, “Using color to separate reflection components,”COLOR res. appl. 10(4):210–218, Winter 1985. Also avaible as Tech. Report TR-136, Computer Science Department, Univ. of Rochester, NY, April 1984.
C.E. Thorpe, “FIDO: Vision and navigation for a robot rover.” PhD thesis, Computer Science Department, Carnegie-Mellon University, December 1984. Available as Tech. Report CMU-CS-84-168.
K.E. Torrance and E.M. Sparrow, “Theory of off-specular reflection from roughened surfaces,”J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 57:1105–1114, September 1967.
S.J. Williamson and H.Z. Cummins,Light and Color in Nature and Art. Wiley, New York, 1983.
G.J. Klinker, S.A. Shafer, and T. Kanade, “Image segmentation and reflection analysis through color.” In SPIE's 1988 Techn. Symp. on Ophics, Electro-Ophics, and Sensors, April 4–8, 1988, Orlando, Florida. (Also in DARPA-Image Understanding Workshop, Boston, MA, April 1988.)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant DCR-8419990 and by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DOD), ARPA Order No. 4976, monitored by the Air Force Avionics Laboratory under contract F33615-84-K-1520. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or the US Government.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Klinker, G.J., Shafer, S.A. & Kanade, T. The measurement of highlights in color images. Int J Comput Vision 2, 7–32 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00836279
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00836279