Better images with HDR Capture and Low-Light Assistant (experimental research prototypes for Nokia N900)
Mon, 2010-08-30 12:31Written by Kari Pulli, Nokia Fellow and the head of the Visual Computing and Ubiquitous Imaging research team at NRC Palo Alto.
Cameras are unfortunately not as adaptable as the human eye, and in situations where there is either too much or too little light, it’s not easy, or often not even possible to capture images that would give the viewer a similar experience as the person that saw the situation with her own eyes. However, by taking several images with different image settings and then combining the input images into a single new image it is possible to capture better images.
Nokia Research Center Palo Alto has developed two new applications to address these problems. A new camera control architecture and API created jointly by Nokia and Stanford University (http://fcam.garage.maemo.org) is a key enabler for these applications.
The HDR Capture application is meant for situations with too much light, especially when the background is bright (e.g., sky) and the foreground has less light (e.g., a person). Using normal camera to capture a single image would typically lead to a black silhouette of the person with a nice sky in the background. HDR Capture measures the brightness of the scene, captures 1-3 images as the user presses the capture button, and combines them into a single image that should show details of both the bright and dark areas.
Another problematic situation is when there just isn’t enough light. If you take an image with short exposure time, the result is a noisy image. However, if you extend the exposure time, the output is often blurry. With Lowlight Assistant the camera captures two images, one short (probably noisy) and one long (probably blurry), and automatically combines the images to a new image that hopefully has the sharpness of the short exposure and the better colors of the long exposure. The user can evaluate a small area of the image to see whether the quality is sufficient. If it is, the combined image is processed in the background, otherwise the user can try again.
These applications are experimental betas and we are currently evaluating how to take them further. So if you’re interested, download the apps and let us know what you think.
Comments
P.s. in case you were wondering, this is partly old news:
http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/07/27/nokia-n900-fcam-hdr-and-low-li...
http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/07/21/fcam-unleashed-for-the-nokia-n...
We just wanted to put these ideas, underlying technologies, and prototypes under proper scrutiny by our dear Beta Labs community - let's investigate together how to take these forward :)
> let's investigate together how to take these forward
P.p.s. please spare me from bad jokes here, referring to the unfortunate past decision: https://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2010/08/20/nokia-messaging-for-social-ne...
To do better expectation management this time, note that this project is still in research phase, and the apps are research samples, not final products. Even though you shouldn't expect these innovations to be integrated to firmware updates of all existing Nokia devices out there, I think this stuff is way cool and deserves our full attention (of fellow N900 users out there, at least).
I just love this application! Photos can be really beautiful, especially in sunlight.
This app is seriously cool, but I noticed that battery life decreases somewhat. Of course the postprocessing requires some juice, but when the app isn't in use there should be no power or performance hits, right?
Can't believe what I am seeing. Nokia Betalabs has something on N900, even if it's old.
World can change.
Why not for N97? N97's camera is so weak even to casual use!
The best thing about Nokia is that you are always innovating. No other mobile company is so seriously bothered about creating value for users. The other companies are more into creating new needs for fashionable devices among consumers.
@Martin: The final images are post-processed after the capture, it takes 1-2 minutes (low-light app is a bit slower than the HDR), during which time the processor runs at max speed. However, afterwards they shouldn't indeed use much power if they are minimized. We'll check the power consumption and hopefully we can update that during September. Of course, if you close the application, after it has finished processing there's no impact.
@Mass: currently the key enabler behind this and other similar applications that our research team is working is FCam: http://fcam.garage.maemo.org, and for the time being that is only available on N900. Individual applications may be possible to port also on Symbian, we may do so later if we have time (our team is pretty small, however). Right now all our time goes to developing a high-quality panorama application.
do you have for n97?
@kari.pulli: Panorama application for N97?
About N97: we're quite small research (not productization) team, for the time being we have no bandwidth to create N97 versions, unfortunately.
I just noticed you said that your team is developing a high-quality panorama application. For which platform are you developing and at what stage is your app at this moment?
Sorry guys but you didn't suprise me at all. Lately I have discovered you do not have time (or people) to do anything enough fast and/or well to anything in whole Nokia corporation.
After all N97 is also your baby, won't you feed it with latest apps and some cool apps like HDR & Pano Shoot mode.
N97 support please :)