The Birmingham Object Lighting Database:a stereoscopic database of objects, faces, surfaces and outdoor scenes captured under characterised lighting

We present an image database containing photographs of objects, surfaces, faces and outdoor scenes. The images were captured as stereoscopic pairs using two Sony DSC-R1 digital cameras and are available in AdobeRGB and linear formats. Surfaces include sinewaves, random undulations, and combinations of bumps and concavities, and were subject to a number of surface treatments including a matt gray finish (from which ground truth illumination can be derived), rough textures, painted textures, coloured stripes, textured stripes, and mixed textured and coloured stripes. In all there were a total of 10 surface profiles each with 7 treatments. The same surface treatments were applied to a sphere and a cube. In addition we photographed miscellaneous objects in their natural state and painted grey. Objects and surfaces were photographed inside a 1 m diameter integrating sphere which produced diffuse lighting. To this we added one of 56 spot lights creating 113 different lighting conditions (1 diffuse only, 56 diffuse plus spot, 56 spot only). We also provide images of 86 faces in profile (16 lighting conditions) and frontal (31 lighting conditions) views. Finally we provide images of 99 outdoor scenes featuring textures and shadows captured under recorded illumination conditions. The database will be accessible at www.bold.bham.ac.uk.