A Psychophysical Validation of Tone Mapping Operators using a High Dynamic Range Display

摘要

The natural world presents a wide range of colors and luminance levels. Night scenes can have luminances of 10~(-4) cd/m~2 or less, while daylight scenes are close to 10~5 cd/m~2. Although various techniques are available which allow us to generate high dynamic range (HDR) images, generally, it is not possible to linearly display this wide luminance range. A typical monitor, for example, is only capable of displaying a contrast ratio of approximately two orders of magnitude which is a tiny fraction of the natural world dynamic range. Tone mapping operators (TMO) aim to generate images visually similar to a real scene by careful mapping to a set of luminances that can be displayed on a low contrast ratio display. Many tone mapping operators are capable of enormous reductions in contrast to fit the displayable range and manage to produce satisfying and visually pleasing results. In this work we conduct a formal investigation to determine whether in fact these results are indeed a good representation of the real-world scene they are attempting to portray.