Apple Inc.
Low-light and/or long exposure image capture mode

Abstract:

An incoming image stream may be obtained from an image capture device operating in low-light conditions and/or a simulated long exposure image capture mode. As images are obtained, a weighting operation may be performed on the pixels of the captured images to generate and/or update an accumulative weight map, wherein the weighting is based, e.g., on the proximity of the captured pixels' values to the respective image capture device's maximum observable pixel value. As batches of images are obtained, they may be fused, e.g., according to the accumulative weight map, in a memory-efficient manner that places an upper limit on the overall memory footprint of the fusion operations, to simulate an actual long exposure image capture. In some embodiments, the weight map may be stored at a lower resolution than the obtained images and then upscaled, e.g., via the use of guided filters, before being applied in the fusion operations.