Patent ID: 8374428

Claim:
One or more computer-readable storage media that store executable instructions to balance color in an image that is made of plural photographs, wherein the executable instructions, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform acts comprising: projecting said photographs to a 3-D model; finding regions on said 3-D model where two or more of said photographs overlap; choosing tie points in said regions, wherein each of said tie points corresponds to a pixel of said image, and wherein a location of each pixel in said image is identified by coordinates; finding a first function that generates a saturation value based on a pixel's coordinates; finding a second function that generates a luminosity value based on a pixel's coordinates, wherein said first function and said second function are chosen to minimize a cost of using said first function's value instead of said tie points' initial saturation values and said second function's value instead of said tie points' initial luminosity values; using said first function to generate saturation values for all pixels in said image; using said second function to generate luminosity values for all pixels in said image; for pixels in said image, reassigning said pixels' saturation and luminosity values based on values generated by said first function and said second function, respectively; and rendering said image with reassigned saturation and luminosity values.