Estimation of the Efficiency of Digital Camera Photosensor Noise Measurement Through the Automatic Segmentation of Non-Uniform Target Methods and the Standard EMVA 1288

• Published in: Measurement techniques 2021-07, Vol.64 (4), p.296-304
• Main Authors: Evtikhiev, N. N., Kozlov, A. V., Krasnov, V. V., Rodin, V. G., Starikov, R. S., Cheremkhin, P. A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Accuracy; Analytical Chemistry; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Comparative analysis; Digital cameras; Electronic cameras; Image segmentation; Machine vision; Measurement; Measurement Science and Instrumentation; Methods; Noise; Noise measurement; Optophysical Measurements; Photographic equipment; Photographic equipment & supplies; Physical Chemistry; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Vision systems
• ISSN: 0543-1972; 1573-8906
• DOI: 10.1007/s11018-021-01932-2

This paper discusses the problem of characterizing digital cameras and the determination of their noise characteristics, which is relevant for contemporary photographic equipment. The issues of limiting the accuracy of data obtained with digital cameras, related to the photosensor noise, are also highlighted. The European Machine Vision Association standard EMVA 1288 for measurement and presentation of specifications for machine vision sensors and cameras, and fast automatic segmentation of non-uniform target (ASNT) noise estimation methods are compared. The noise characteristics of the photosensors of the machine vision camera PixeLink PL-B781F, scientific camera Retiga R6, and amateur camera Canon EOS M100 are investigated. The accuracies of the measurement results and speed of calculation and the method implementation are also analyzed. The assessment of the temporal noise revealed that the ASNT method is not inferior in terms of accuracy compared to the standard method and can be implemented significantly faster, even with additional images taken into account for accuracy improvement.