Abstract

Procedures for recovering surface reflectance properties from reflected lights that rely on a fixed model of the way that illuminants may vary will fail if a scene’s illuminant is not described accurately by the fixed model. A color constancy algorithm that is designed to work best in outdoor, daylight environments, for instance, may not work well indoors under fluorescent light sources. A recovery procedure must adapt to a change in illumination environment if it is to maintain color constancy. An analysis of the chromatic motion in reflected lights shows that trichromatic bilinear models can use quantum-catch data to track the illumination environment and maintain color constancy. The adaptation procedure can be extended to accommodate both unknown illumination environments and unknown reflectance environments.

© 1992 Optical Society of America