Generation of Nightscape Image from Daytime City Aerial Views

Abstract

We introduce a method to automatically synthesize a nightscape image from a daytime city aerial view. Based on the scotopic vision, we adjust the image luminance, darken the entire image and add to this a drawing processing in line with several estimates. We capture the characteristics of the daytime city aerial views and then use morphological image processing plus connected component labeling to locate the specific areas of walls and windows. In addition, we regard the lower luminance parts in daytime city image as the area of road and extract its contour information. For the drawing operation, we use the window area color composition ratios based on statistical analysis and then reproduce the window lighting though the shape of the estimated window area. Furthermore, we simulate a phenomenon known as diffuse reflection of the walls on the road. We demonstrate some experimental results of our plausible nightscape image generation.