Detecting and Removing Shadows

Z. Figov, Y. Tal, and M. Koppel (Israel)

Keywords

Imaging and image processing, computer vision ,image segmentation, shadow removal, image enhancement

Abstract

This paper describes a method for the detection and removal of shadows in RGB images. The shadows are with hard borders. The proposed method begins with a segmentation of the color image. It is then decided if a segment is a shadow by examination of its neighboring segments. We use the method introduced in Finlayson et. al. [1] to remove the shadows by zeroing the shadow's borders in an edge representation of the image, and then re-integrating the edge using the method introduced by Weiss [2]. This is done for all of the color channels thus leaving a shadow-free color image. Unlike previous methods, the present method requires neither a calibrated camera nor multiple images. This method is complementary of current illumination correction algorithms. Examination of a number of examples indicates that this method yields a significant improvement over previous methods.

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