Binocular Tone Mapping with Improved Overall Contrast and Local Details

Abstract: Tone mapping is a commonly used technique that maps the set of colors in high-dynamic-range (HDR) images to another set of colors in low-dynamic-range (LDR) images, to fit the need for print-outs, LCD monitors and projectors. Unfortunately, during the compression of dynamic range, the overall contrast and local details generally cannot be preserved simultaneously. Recently, with the increased use of stereoscopic devices, the notion of binocular tone mapping has been proposed in the existing research study. However, the existing research lacks the binocular perception study and is unable to generate the optimal binocular pair that presents the most visual content. In this paper, we propose a novel perception-based binocular tone mapping method, that can generate an optimal binocular image pair (generating left and right images simultaneously) from an HDR image that presents the most visual content by designing a binocular perception metric. Our method outperforms the existing method in terms of both visual and time performance.