Use of commercial off-the-shelf digital cameras for scientific data acquisition and scene-specific color calibration

• Main Authors: Treibitz, Tali (Author), Xiao, Bei (Contributor), Gurkan, Umut Atakan (Author), Allen, Justine J. (Author), Demirci, Utkan (Contributor), Hanlon, Roger T. (Author), Akkaynak Yellin, Derya (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Harvard University- (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (Contributor), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering (Contributor), Akkaynak, Derya (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Optical Society of America, 2014-01-21T16:13:23Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

Commercial off-the-shelf digital cameras are inexpensive and easy-to-use instruments that can be used for quantitative scientific data acquisition if images are captured in raw format and processed so that they maintain a linear relationship with scene radiance. Here we describe the image-processing steps required for consistent data acquisition with color cameras. In addition, we present a method for scene-specific color calibration that increases the accuracy of color capture when a scene contains colors that are not well represented in the gamut of a standard color-calibration target. We demonstrate applications of the proposed methodology in the fields of biomedical engineering, artwork photography, perception science, marine biology, and underwater imaging.
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant 1129897)
United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N0001406-1-0202)
United States. Office of Naval Research (Grant N00014-10-1-0989)
Grant R01AI093282
Grant R01AI081534
National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (NIH U54EB15408)