Human Vision Models for Perceptually Optimized Image Processing -- A Review

Abstract

By taking into account the properties and limitations of the human visual system (HVS), images can be more efficiently compressed, colors more accurately reproduced, prints better rendered, to mention a few major advantages. To achieve these goals it is necessary to build a computational model of the HVS. In this paper we give an introduction to the general issue of HVS-modeling and review the specific applications of visual quality assessment and HVS-based image compression, which are closely related. On one hand, these two examples demonstrate the common structure of HVS-models, on the other hand they also show how application-specific constraints influence model design. Recent vision models from these application areas are reviewed and summarized in a table for direct comparison.