Patent ID: 7382931

Claim:
A computer-implemented process for generating high dynamic range (HDR) video from an image sequence captured while varying the exposure of each frame, said process comprising: a setting step for setting the exposure for each frame of the video image sequence prior to it being captured as a function of the pixel brightness distribution, wherein the frames of the video image sequence alternate between one captured at a shorter exposure and one captured at a longer exposure; and for each frame of the video after a prescribed number of initiating frames, an identifying step for identifying corresponding pixels between the frame under consideration and both preceding and subsequent neighboring frames representing a corresponding pixel set, said identifying comprising, a first warping step for uni-directionally warping the immediately preceding neighboring frame to produce an approximate registration of the preceding frame with the frame under consideration, a second warping step for uni-directionally warping the immediately subsequent neighboring frame to produce an approximate registration of the subsequent frame with the frame under consideration, and a third warping step for bi-directionally warping said preceding and subsequent frames to produce refined forward warped and backward warped frames representing approximate registrations of said neighboring frames with the frame under consideration; and for each set of corresponding pixels, a second identifying step for identifying at least one pixel in the set that represents a trustworthy pixel and an employing step for employing the pixel color information associated with the one or more identified trustworthy pixels to compute a radiance value for that set of pixels to form a radiance map representing a frame of the HDR video.