A practical approach for estimating illumination distribution from shadows using a single image

Abstract

This article presents a practical method that estimates illumination distribution from shadows using only a single image. The shadows are assumed to be cast on a textured, Lambertian surface by an object of known shape. Previous methods for illumination estimation from shadows usually require that the reflectance property of the surface on which shadows are cast be constant or uniform, or need an additional image to cancel out the effects of varying albedo of the textured surface on illumination estimation. But, our method deals with an estimation problem for which surface albedo information is not available. In this case, the estimation problem corresponds to an underdetermined one. We show that the combination of regularization by correlation and some user-specified information can be a practical method for solving the underdetermined problem. In addition, as an optimization tool for solving the problem, we develop a constrained Non-Negative Quadratic Programming (NNQP) technique into which not only regularization but also multiple linear constraints induced by user-specified information are easily incorporated. We test and validate our method on both synthetic and real images and present some experimental results. (c) 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.