Disney Research has just discovered a way to make high-dynamic range or HDR videos look more real than you could ever imagine. And it mostly has to do with a new tonal mapping technique which manages to maintain the excellent quality of HDR footage.
But before we jump into this, a word on HDR technology. The easiest way to explain it is by saying that such imaging is meant to show us content the way we’d see it directly with our own eyes in the real world as opposed to what the camera is capable of displaying.
With HDR involved, images or videos manifest a greater range of luminance levels and hence, better detailing when it comes to light and shadows. Assuming you got the general idea by now, Disney Research’s brand new tone mapping operator decreases the input dynamic range, while preserving scene details simultaneously.
Low light videos with a noticeable amount of camera noise won’t be a problem soon if the technique revealed by Disney Research is put to practical use. It’s not like tone mapping is not being used by today’s TV sets and other screens. It’s just that they are not very good at doing their job and introduce unwanted effects like flickering or ghosting.
That’s because HDR is too much for standard displays to handle. The team at Disney Research have solved the main issue troubling existing tonal mapping operators by breaking down the signal received. The detail layer is then treated to a temporal filter and a spatiotemporal filter is applied to the base layer, hence ensuring better and realer results.
You can get a rounded idea of what Disney Research is trying to achieve with its tonal mapping technology for HDR content, by a taking a look at the video posted above.