Generic and real-time detection of specular reflections in images

In this paper, we propose a generic and efficient method for real-time specular reflections detection in images. The method relies on a new thresholding technique applied in the Hue-Saturation-Value (HSV) color space. A detailed experimental study was conducted in this color space to highlight specular reflections´ properties. Current state-of-the-art methods have difficulties with lighting jumps by being too specific or computationally expensive for real-time applications. Our method addresses this problem using the following three steps: an adaptation of the contrast of the image to handle lighting jumps, an automatic thresholding to isolate specular reflections and a post-processing step to further reduce the number of false detections. This method has been compared with the state-of-the-art according to our two proposed experimental protocols based on contours and gravity center and offers fast and accurate results without a priori on the image in real-time.