Shadow detection based on RGB and YIQ color models in color aerial images

Abstract

In color aerial images, shadows appearing in images may cause false color tones, loss of feature information, and shape distortion of objects, which affects further image processing tasks. Hence, shadow detection is one of the challenging tasks in image processing. In this paper, we will study basics of shadows and different types of shadows which can appear in the images. Significant literature review is carried out on existing shadow detection techniques. Simple and efficient chromaticity-based approach for shadow detection is applied on color aerial images. The technique is applied in YIQ color space that decouple luminance and chromaticity. The technique is further extended by us to further enhance the shadow detection results using proposed post processing methods. The visual results shows effectiveness of our approach in comparison with the results obtained using the original approach without post processing.