Shape recovery using high dynamic range images

An effective method for object shape recovery using HDRIs (high dynamic range images) is proposed. The radiance values of each point on the reference sphere and target object are firstly calculated, thus the set of candidate normals of each target point are found by comparing its radiance to that of each reference sphere point. In single-image shape recovery, a smoothness operation is applied to the target normals to obtain a stable and reasonable result; while in photometric stereo, radiance vectors of reference and target objects formed due to illuminations under different light source directions are directly compared to get the most suitable target normals. Finally, the height values can be recovered from the resulting normal field. Because diffuse and specular reflection are handled in an unified framework with radiance, our approach eliminates the limitation presented in most recovery strategies, i.e., only Lambertian model can be used. The experiment results from the real and synthesized images show the performance of our approach.