Webcams are an increasingly vital tool for working remotely and staying connected with friends and loved ones. As such, webcam sales have experienced significant growth. We all know good and bad quality images when we see them, but quantifying a camera’s performance is critical for making design choices, sourcing components, and performing quality control. Developing these devices presents challenges common to the development of consumer cameras. (more…)
Image Quality Testing for Webcams
Correcting Misleading Image Quality Measurements
We discuss several common image quality measurements that are often misinterpreted, so that bad images are falsely interpreted as good, and we describe how to obtain valid measurements.
Describing and Sampling the LED Flicker Signal
High-frequency flickering light sources such as pulse-width modulated LEDs can cause image sensors to record incorrect levels. We describe a model with a loose set of assumptions (encompassing multi-exposure HDR schemes) which can be used to define the Flicker Signal, a continuous function of time based on the phase relationship between the light source and exposure window. (more…)
Validation Methods for Geometric Camera Calibration
Camera-based advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) require the mapping from image coordinates into world coordinates to be known. The process of computing that mapping is geometric calibration. This paper provides a series of tests that may be used to assess the goodness of the geometric calibration
Making Dynamic Range Measurements Robust Against Flare Light
Introduction
A camera’s Dynamic Range (DR) is the range of tones in a scene that can be reproduced with adequate contrast and good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Camera DR is often limited by flare light, which is stray light in the image, primarily caused by reflections between lens elements. Flare light reduces DR by fogging images; i.e., washing out detail in dark areas. (more…)
P2020 Automotive Engineering Technology May 2019
Imatest attended the P2020 meeting on May 13 and 14, 2019 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Paul Romancyzk, PhD., Senior Imaging Scientist, and Rob Sumner, Lead Engineer, represented Imatest. Paul co-led the discussion on Color Separation within the Image Quality for Machine Vision subgroup.
Understanding collimator MTF loss using bronze and golden sample testing
by Henry Koren, inspired by Paul Romanczyk, edited by Norman Koren
Not all MTF measurement systems will necessarily provide the same results. The quality of the test target can impact the measurements you obtain. Long distance tests are ideally performed at the hyperfocal distance, where there is enough depth of field to have acceptable focus at infinity. (more…)
Imatest at IEEE P2020
Imatest sent two engineers to the IEEE P2020 Automotive Imaging Quality face-to-face meeting in Dusseldorf, Germany this past February in 2019. The IEEE P2020 standard, which is still in development, aims to define KPIs and test procedures to address the many challenges relevant (and often unique) to automotive imaging. (more…)
New IEEE P2020 Automotive Image Quality White Paper
Learn more about the development of standards for automotive camera systems.
The IEEE-SA P2020 is a working group for automotive imaging standards. Its goal is to define a set of standards to resolve the current ambiguity in the measurement of image quality in automotive imaging systems. (more…)
Increasing the Repeatability of Your Sharpness Tests
By Robert Sumner
With contributions from Ranga Burada, Henry Koren, Brienna Rogers and Norman Koren
Consistency is a fundamental aspect of successful image quality testing. Each component in your system may contribute to variation in test results. For tasks such as pass/fail testing, the primary goal is to identify the variation due to the component and ignore the variation due to noise. Being able to accurately replicate test results with variability limited to 1-5% will give you a more accurate description of how your product will perform. (more…)
How to Test Dynamic Range: A step-by-step use case with the Pixel 2 XL
In this post, we will be using the Contrast Resolution Chart and Imatest Master to measure the dynamic range of a Google Pixel 2 XL. The dynamic range of a camera is the reproducible tonal range in an imaging system. Put simply, it is the range between the darkest black and the brightest white of an image and is typically measured in decibels (dB). (more…)
High-contrast edge-SFR test targets produce invalid MTF results
The obsolete ISO 12233:2000 standard defines a resolution test target with a high contrast ratio. These are typically produced at the maximum dynamic range of a printer, which can be anywhere from 40:1 to 80:1. The high contrast can lead to clipping of the signal which leads to overstated invalid MTF values. (more…)
Measuring the impact of flare light on dynamic range
Abstract
The dynamic range of recent HDR image sensors, defined as the range of exposure between saturation and 0 dB SNR, can be extremely high: 120 dB or more. But the dynamic range of real imaging systems is limited by veiling glare (flare light), arising from reflections inside the lens, and hence rarely approaches this level. (more…)