Color Constancy (eBook)

A human observer is able to recognize the color of objects
irrespective of the light used to illuminate them. This is called
color constancy. A digital camera uses a sensor to measure the
reflected light, meaning that the measured color at each pixel
varies according to the color of the illuminant. Therefore, the
resulting colors may not be the same as the colors that were
perceived by the observer. Obtaining color constant descriptors
from image pixels is not only important for digital photography,
but also valuable for computer vision, color-based automatic object
recognition, and color image processing in general.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of
color constancy, describing all the major color constancy
algorithms, as well as presenting cutting edge research in the area
of color image processing. Beginning with an in-depth look at the
human visual system, Ebner goes on to:

* examine the theory of color image formation, color reproduction
and different color spaces;

* discuss algorithms for color constancy under both uniform and
non-uniform illuminants;

* describe methods for shadow removal and shadow attenuation in
digital images;

* evaluate the various algorithms for object recognition and
color constancy and compare this to data obtained from experimental
psychology;

* set out the different algorithms as pseudo code in an appendix
at the end of the book.

Color Constancy is an ideal reference for practising
engineers, computer scientists and researchers working in the area
of digital color image processing. It may also be useful for
biologists or scientists in general who are interested in
computational theories of the visual brain and bio-inspired
engineering systems.