Detection of image quality metamers based on the metric for unified image quality

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a concept of the image quality metamerism as an expanded version of the metamerism defined in the color science. The concept is used to unify different image quality attributes, and applied to introduce a metric showing the degree of image quality metamerism to analyze a cultural property. Our global goal is to build a metric to evaluate total quality of images acquired by different imaging systems and observed under different viewing conditions. As the basic step to the global goal, the metric is consisted of color, spectral and texture information in this research, and applied to detect image quality metamers to investigate the cultural property. The property investigated is the oldest extant version of folding screen paintings that depict the thriving city of Kyoto designated as a nationally important cultural property in Japan. Gold colored areas painted by using high granularity colorants compared with other color areas in the property are evaluated based on the metric, then the metric is visualized as a map showing the possibility of the image quality metamer to the reference pixel.