The computation of color constant descriptors in chromatic images

We propose a method, based on finite-dimensional linear models of reflection and illumination, which allows the transformation of chromatic images into color constant images. This proves to be useful in applications in which either there is no information on the illuminant present in the scene, or when such information is confounded by the existence of inter-reflections between objects. The method proposed in this paper is aimed at computations taking place beyond the sensory level of vision systems, and may use inputs corrected by sensors (for adaptation). In contrast to previous work, we show that good results can be obtained using a 3-receptor system and some knowledge about the spectral properties of natural materials and illuminants. In the method developed, an estimate of the illuminant in the scene is computed, which allow the computation of color constant descriptors of the pixel values in the image. In addition, we show a method of computing an estimate to the actual reflectances of the materials in the scence out of the computed color constant descriptors.

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