Lighting array control

US7869705B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• Microsoft Corporation · US

Inventors

• Zicheng Liu · Bellevue, US
• Mingxuan Sun · Bellevue, US
• Jingyu Qiu · Bellevue, US
• Zhengyou Zhang · Redmond, US
• Michael J. Sinclair · Kirkland, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Jan 21, 2008
• Grant date: Jan 11, 2011
• Expiry date: Oct 31, 2028

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G03B15/02
• WIPO field: Optics
• WIPO sector: Instruments

Abstract

A subject captured by a camera may be affected by environmental lighting provided by nearby light sources and the sun or moon, which may cause underexposure or overexposure of the image or aesthetically displeasing color tones. Image processing and camera adjustments may mitigate some imaging problems with limited effect and introduce undesirable side effects. A lighting array may be devised to expose the subject to various types of light (e.g., white light comprising full spectrum illumination and red, green, and blue lights comprising partial spectrum illumination) to resolve lighting problems in a more effective manner. Moreover, the lighting array may be responsively controlled to adjust the subject image with respect to one or more target spectra specifying desirable colors for the subject image. The lighting array may be iteratively controlled, e.g. by a gradient descent algorithm, for incrementally adjusting parameters with respect to proximate target spectra for the image.