LeeKosarajuSankaranarayanan

Introduction

The human visual system responds to only wavelengths of light in the range 400-700nm. Although not perceived by the human eye, light in the wavelengths from about 800-2500nm, which represents the near-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, is rich in information about the scene that can be utilized for a variety of applications. Remote sensing community has a long history of doing this. Since silicon is sensitive to these wavelengths, near-infrared capture could be enabled in digital cameras and the information could be used to enhance photographic images. A number of such applications have been proposed by researchers [place holder for references]. In our work, we are concerned with evaluating some of these algorithms used for contrast enhancement, haze removal and skin smoothing.

As these applications work independent of each other, methods and results are discussed separately for each of these.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr.Joyce Farrell and Dr.Torbjorn Skauli for providing us with copious hyperspectral data and also for their help throughout the project. We also appreciate the feedback from Prof.Brian Wandell and Henryk Blasinski that helped us refine our project thought process.