Separating reflections and lighting using independent components analysis

Abstract

The image of an object can vary dramatically depending on lighting, specularities/reflections and shadows. It is often advantageous to separate these incidental variations from the intrinsic aspects of an image. This paper describes how the statistical tool of independent components analysis can be used to separate some of these incidental components. We describe the details of this method and show its efficacy with examples of separating reflections off glass, and separating the relative contributions of individual light sources.