Estimation of multiple illuminants based on specular highlight detection

Abstract

This paper proposes a method for estimating the scene illuminant spectral power distributions of multiple light sources under a complex illumination environment. The spectral power distributions including natural and artificial illuminants are estimated based on the image data from a high-dimensional spectral imaging system. We note that specular highlights on inhomogeneous dielectric object surfaces includes much information about scene illumination according to the dichromatic reflection model. First, we describe several methods for detecting specular highlight areas. We assume a curved object surface illuminated by multiple light sources from different directions. Then we estimate the illuminant spectrum of each light source from the image data of that highlight area. Based on this principle, we present an algorithm to estimate multiple illuminants. The feasibility of the proposed method is shown in experiments. © 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.