Depth from scattering

• Published in: Proceedings of IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition pp. 801 - 806
• Main Authors: Cozman, F., Krotkov, E.
• Format: Conference Proceeding Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1997
• Subjects: Atmosphere; Atmospheric modeling; Atmospheric optics; Atmospheric waves; Computational modeling; Image analysis; Image understanding; Layout; Light scattering; Lighting; Particle scattering; Rayleigh scattering; Real time systems
• ISBN: 9780818678226; 0818678224
• ISSN: 1063-6919; 1063-6919
• DOI: 10.1109/CVPR.1997.609419

Light power is affected when it crosses the atmosphere; there is a simple, albeit non-linear, relationship between the radiance of an image at any given wavelength and the distance between object and viewer. This phenomenon is called atmospheric scattering and has been extensively studied by physicists and meteorologists. We present the first analysis of this phenomenon from an image understanding perspective: we investigate a group of techniques for extraction of depth cues solely from the analysis of atmospheric scattering effects in images. Depth from scattering techniques are discussed for indoor and outdoor environments, and experimental tests with real images are presented. We have found that depth cues in outdoor scenes can be recovered with surprising accuracy and can be used as an additional information source for autonomous vehicles.