Linearisation of RGB camera responses for quantitative image analysis of visible and UV photography: a comparison of two techniques.

Abstract

Linear camera responses are required for recovering the total amount of incident irradiance, quantitative image analysis, spectral reconstruction from camera responses and characterisation of spectral sensitivity curves. Two commercially-available digital cameras equipped with Bayer filter arrays and sensitive to visible and near-UV radiation were characterised using biexponential and Bézier curves. Both methods successfully fitted the entire characteristic curve of the tested devices, allowing for an accurate recovery of linear camera responses, particularly those corresponding to the middle of the exposure range. Nevertheless the two methods differ in the nature of the required input parameters and the uncertainty associated with the recovered linear camera responses obtained at the extreme ends of the exposure range. Here we demonstrate the use of both methods for retrieving information about scene irradiance, describing and quantifying the uncertainty involved in the estimation of linear camera responses.