Dynamic range

About: Dynamic range is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 7576 publications have been published within this topic receiving 101739 citations. The topic is also known as: DNR & DR.

A 128 $\times$ 128 120 dB 15 $\mu$ s Latency Asynchronous Temporal Contrast Vision Sensor

Abstract: This paper describes a 128 times 128 pixel CMOS vision sensor. Each pixel independently and in continuous time quantizes local relative intensity changes to generate spike events. These events appear at the output of the sensor as an asynchronous stream of digital pixel addresses. These address-events signify scene reflectance change and have sub-millisecond timing precision. The output data rate depends on the dynamic content of the scene and is typically orders of magnitude lower than those of conventional frame-based imagers. By combining an active continuous-time front-end logarithmic photoreceptor with a self-timed switched-capacitor differencing circuit, the sensor achieves an array mismatch of 2.1% in relative intensity event threshold and a pixel bandwidth of 3 kHz under 1 klux scene illumination. Dynamic range is > 120 dB and chip power consumption is 23 mW. Event latency shows weak light dependency with a minimum of 15 mus at > 1 klux pixel illumination. The sensor is built in a 0.35 mum 4M2P process. It has 40times40 mum2 pixels with 9.4% fill factor. By providing high pixel bandwidth, wide dynamic range, and precisely timed sparse digital output, this silicon retina provides an attractive combination of characteristics for low-latency dynamic vision under uncontrolled illumination with low post-processing requirements.

Extended depth of field through wave-front coding

Abstract: We designed an optical‐digital system that delivers near-diffraction-limited imaging performance with a large depth of field. This system is the standard incoherent optical system modified by a phase mask with digital processing of the resulting intermediate image. The phase mask alters or codes the received incoherent wave front in such a way that the point-spread function and the optical transfer function do not change appreciably as a function of misfocus. Focus-independent digital filtering of the intermediate image is used to produce a combined optical‐digital system that has a nearly diffraction limited point-spread function. This high-resolution extended depth of field is obtained through the expense of an increased dynamic range of the incoherent system. We use both the ambiguity function and the stationary-phase method to design these phase masks.

Adaptive Logarithmic Mapping For Displaying High Contrast Scenes

Abstract: We propose a fast, high quality tone mapping technique to display high contrast images on devices with limited dynamic range of luminance values. The method is based on logarithmic compression of luminance values, imitating the human response to light. A bias power function is introduced to adaptively vary logarithmic bases, resulting in good preservation of details and contrast. To improve contrast in dark areas, changes to the gamma correction procedure are proposed. Our adaptive logarithmic mapping technique is capable of producing perceptually tuned images with high dynamic content and works at interactive speed. We demonstrate a successful application of our tone mapping technique with a high dynamic range video player enabling to adjust optimal viewing conditions for any kind of display while taking into account user preference concerning brightness, contrast compression, and detail reproduction.

A 240 × 180 130 dB 3 µs Latency Global Shutter Spatiotemporal Vision Sensor

Abstract: Event-based dynamic vision sensors (DVSs) asynchronously report log intensity changes. Their high dynamic range, sub-ms latency and sparse output make them useful in applications such as robotics and real-time tracking. However they discard absolute intensity information which is useful for object recognition and classification. This paper presents a dynamic and active pixel vision sensor (DAVIS) which addresses this deficiency by outputting asynchronous DVS events and synchronous global shutter frames concurrently. The active pixel sensor (APS) circuits and the DVS circuits within a pixel share a single photodiode. Measurements from a 240×180 sensor array of 18.5 μm 2 pixels fabricated in a 0.18 μm 6M1P CMOS image sensor (CIS) technology show a dynamic range of 130 dB with 11% contrast detection threshold, minimum 3 μs latency, and 3.5% contrast matching for the DVS pathway; and a 51 dB dynamic range with 0.5% FPN for the APS readout.

High dynamic range imaging: spatially varying pixel exposures

Abstract: While real scenes produce a wide range of brightness variations, vision systems use low dynamic range image detectors that typically provide 8 bits of brightness data at each pixel. The resulting low quality images greatly limit what vision can accomplish today. This paper proposes a very simple method for significantly enhancing the dynamic range of virtually any imaging system. The basic principle is to simultaneously sample the spatial and exposure dimensions of image irradiance. One of several ways to achieve this is by placing an optical mask adjacent to a conventional image detector array. The mask has a pattern with spatially varying transmittance, thereby giving adjacent pixels on the detector different exposures to the scene. The captured image is mapped to a high dynamic range image using an efficient image reconstruction algorithm. The end result is an imaging system that can measure a very wide range of scene radiance and produce a substantially larger number of brightness levels, with a slight reduction in spatial resolution. We conclude with several examples of high dynamic range images computed using spatially varying pixel exposures.