High Dynamic Range Imaging and Display

The human visual system's ability to process wide ranges of intensities by far exceeds the capabilities of current imaging systems. Both cameras and displays are currently limited to a dynamic range (contrast) of between 300:1 to 1,000:1, while the human visual system can process a simultaneous dynamic range of 50,000:1 or more, and can adapt to a much larger range.

High-dynamic-range (HDR) imaging refers to the capture, processing, storage, and display of images with significantly improved contrast and brightness compared to the conventional imaging pipeline. This new HDR imaging pipeline is designed to match the power of the human visual system. HDR displays significantly improve the sense of realism and immersion when showing both real and synthetic HDR imagery. Likewise, HDR cameras are able to take images without saturation under difficult lighting situations. The additional information captured in both extremely bright and extremely dark regions is useful as an input for HDR displays, but also for machine vision applications.

In this talk, I will summarize the results of a multi-disciplinary research effort to create the first true HDR display. This work is a collaboration of multiple departments at The University of British Columbia, and a spin-off company called Brightside Technologies. I will provide an overview of current research activities, with a focus on computational problems.