“Physically-based glare effects for digital images” by Spencer, Shirley, Zimmerman and Greenberg

The physical mechanisms and physiological causes of glare in human vision are reviewed. These mechanisms are scattering in the cornea, lens, and retina, and diffraction in the coherent cell structures on the outer radial areas of the lens. This scattering and diffraction are responsible for the “bloom” and “flare lines” seen around very bright objects. The diffraction effects cause the “lenticular halo”. The quantitative models of these glare effects are reviewed, and an algorithm for using these models to add glare effects to digital images is presented. The resulting digital point-spread function is thus psychophysically based and can substantially increase the “perceived” dynamic range of computer simulations containing light sources. Finally, a perceptual test is presented that indicates these added glare effects increase the apparent brightness of light sources in digital images.

1. BECKMAN, C., NILSSON, O., AND PAULSSON, L.-E. Intraocular scatterinng in vision, artistic painting, and photography. Applied Optics 33, 21 (1994), 4749-4753.
2. BETTELHEIM, F. A., AND PAUNOVIC, M. Light scattering of normal human lens 1. Biophysical Journal 26, 3 (April 1979), 85-99.
3. BLACKWELL, O. M., AND BLACKWELL, H. P~. Individual responses to lighting parameters for a population of 235 observers of varying ages. Journal of the IES 2 (July 1980), 205-232.
4. BOETTNER, E., AND WOLTER, J. Transmission of the ocular media. Investigative Ophthalmology 1 (1962), 776.
5. CAMPBELL, F., AND GUBISCH, P~. Optical quality of the human eye. Journal of Physiology 186 (1966), 558-578.
6. CARTER, J. H. The effects of aging on selected visual functions: Color vision, glare sensitivity, field of vision, and accomodation. In Aging and Human Visual Function, R. Sekular, D. Kline, and K. Dismukes, Eds., vol. 2 of Modern Aging Research. Alan R. Liss, Inc., 1982, pp. 121-130.
7. CHIU, K., HERF, M., SHIRLEY, P., SWAMY, S., WANG, C., AND ZIMMERMAN, K. Spatially nonuniform scaling functions for high contrast images. In Graphics Interface ’93 (May 1993), pp. 245- 244.
8. COREN, S., AND GIRGUS, J. Density of human lens pigmentation in vivo measures over an extended age range. Vision Research 12, 2 (1972), 343-346.
9. CORNSWEET, T. N., AND TELLER, D. Y. Relation of increment thresholds to brightness and luminance. Journal of the Optical Society of America 55 (1975), 1303-1308.
10. DAVSON, H., Ed. The Eye, third ed., vol. la. Academic Press, inc. ltd., London, 1984.
11. FRY, G. A re-evaluation of the scattering theory of glare. Illuminating Engineering 49, 2 (1954), 98-102.
12. HEMENGER, R. P. Intraocular light scatter in normal vision loss with age. Applied Optics 23, 12 (1984), 1972-1974.
13. HEMENGER, R. P. Small-angle intraocular light scatter: a hypothesis concerning its source. Journal of the Optical Society of America A 5, 4 (1987), 577-582.
14. HEMENGER, R. P. Light scatter in cataractous lenses. Opthalmological Phyisiological Optics 10 (October 1990), 394-397.
15. HEMENGER, 1:~. P. Sources of intraocular light scatter from inversion of an empirical glare function. Applied Optics 31, 19 (1992), 3687-3693.
16. HOLLADAY, L. Action of a light source in the field of view on lowering visibility. Journal of the Optical Society of America 14, 1 (1927), 1-15.
17. IJSPEERT, J. K., DE WAARD, P. W. T., VAN DEN BERG, T., AND DE JONG, P. The intraocular straylight function in 129 healthy volunteers; dependence on angle, age, and pigmentation. Vision Research 30, 5 (1990), 699-707.
18. MELLERIO, J., AND PALMER, D. A. Entopic halos and glare. Vision Research 12 (1972), 141-143.
19. MEYER, G. W. Wavelength selection for synthetic image generation. Computer Vision, Graphics, and Image Processing 41 (1988), 57-79.
20. NAKAMAE, E., KANEDA, K., OKAMOTO, T., AND NISHITA, T. A lighting model aiming at drive simulators. Computer Graphics 24, 3 (August 1990), 395-404. ACM Siggraph ’90 Conference Proceedings.
21. ORDY, J. M., BRIZZEE, K. P~., AND JOHNSON, H. A. Cellular alterations in visual pathways and the limbic system: Implications for vision and short-term memory. In Aging and Human Visual Function, R. Sekular, D. Kline, and K. Dismukes, Eds., vol. 2 of Modern Aging Research. Alan R. Liss, Inc., 1982, pp. 79-114.
22. OWSLEY, C., SEKULER, P~., AND SIEMSEN, D. Contrast sensitivity throughout adulthood. Vision Research 23, 7 (1983), 689-699.
23. P~EA, M. S., Ed. The Illumination Engineering Society Lighting Handbook, 8th ed. Illumination Engineering Society, New York, NY, 1993.
24. P~ONCI, C., AND STEFANACCI, S. An annotated bibliography on some aspected of glare. Art. Fond. Ronci 30 (1975), 277-317.
25. Ross, J. E., CLARKE, D. D., AND BRON, A. J. Effect of age on contrast sensitivity function: uniocular and binocular findings. British Journal of Opthalmology 69 (1985), 51-56.
26. SAID, F., AND WEALE, R. The variation with age of the spectral transmissivity of the living human crystaline lens. Gerontologia 3, 4 (1959), 213.
27. SCHLICK, C. Quantization techniques for visualization of high dynamic range imagess. In Proceedings of the Fifth Eurographics Workshop on Rendering (June 1994), pp. 7-18.
28. SEKULER, R., AND BLAKE, R. Perception, second ed. McGraw- Hill, New York, 1990.
29. SIMPSON, G. Ocular halos and coronas. British Journal of Opthalmology 37 (1953), 450-486.
30. SMITH, G., VINGRYS, A. J., MADDOCKS, J. D., AND HELY, C. P. Color recognition and discrimination under full-moon light. Applied Optics 33, 21 (1994), 4741-4748.
31. STILES, W. The effect of glare on the brightness difference threshold. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 104 (1929), 322-351.
32. TUMBLIN, J., AND P~USHMEIER, H. Tone reproduction for realistic computer generated images. IEEE Computer Graphics Applications 13, 7 (1993).
33. Vos, J. Disability glare- a state of the art report. C.I.E. Journal 3, 2 (1984), 39-53.
34. WARD, G. A contrast-based scalefactor for luminance display. In Graphics Gems IV, P. Heckbert, Ed. Academic Press, Boston, 1994, pp. 415-421.
35. WARD, G. J. The radiance lighting simulation and rendering system. Computer Graphics 28, 2 (July 1994), 459-472. ACM Siggraph ’94 Conference Proceedings.
36. WYSZECKI, G., AND STILES, W. Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae, second ed. Wiley, New York, N.Y., 1992.