From the radiance reflected by a scene to a digital picture : a compact model based simulator for image sensor design

In order to explore the design space of a new, potentially unconventional, sensor or to optimize sensor characteristics for a given computer vision application, an image acquisition process simulator has been designed. Its aim is to be simple and modular, yet complete and accurate enough to match the physical phenomena involved. The approach has been described in this paper to highlight the different steps of the acquisition process and to explain the implementation choices and the hypotheses that were made. The simulator has been tested on images of point sources, on simulated test patterns and on real high definition pictures and has proven realistic.