Inter-camera color calibration by correlation model function

Abstract

We present a novel solution to the inter-camera color calibration problem, which is very impor- tant for multi-camera systems. We propose a distance metric and a model function to evaluate the inter-camera radiometric properties. Instead of depending on the shape assumptions of bright- ness transfer function to find separate radiometric responses, we derive a non-parametric function to model color distortion for pair-wise camera combinations. Our method is based on correlation matrix analysis and dynamic programming. The correlation matrix is computed from three 1-D color histograms, and the model function is obtained from a minimum cost path traced within the matrix. The model function enables accurate compensation of color mismatches, which can- not be done with conventional distance metrics. Furthermore, we show that our metric can be reduced to other commonly used metrics with suitable simplification. Our simulations prove the effectiveness of the proposed method even for severe color distortions.