Color histogram equalization through mesh deformation

Abstract

In this paper we propose an extension of grayscale histogram equalization for color images. For aesthetic reasons, previously proposed color histogram equalization techniques do not generate uniform color histograms. Our method will always generate an almost uniform color histogram thus making an optimal use of the color space. This is particularly interesting for pseudo-color scientific visualization. The method is based on deforming a mesh in color space to fit the existing histogram and then map it to a uniform histogram. It is a natural extension of grayscale histogram equalization and it can be applied to spatial and color space of any dimension.