Fusion of multi-exposure images

A method for fusing multi-exposure images of a static scene taken by a stationary camera into an image with maximum information content is introduced. The method partitions the image domain into uniform blocks and for each block selects the image that contains the most information within that block. The selected images are then blended together using monotonically decreasing blending functions that are centered at the blocks and have a sum of 1 everywhere in the image domain. The optimal block size and width of the blending functions are determined using a gradient-ascent algorithm to maximize information content in the fused image. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.