Estimation of the size and location of multiple area light sources

Most illuminant estimation algorithms worked on point light sources or directional light sources. Little attempt has been made, however, to estimate area light sources. In this paper, we present a novel scheme that estimates the size and location of multiple area light sources using a set of stereo images of a sphere with a shiny surface. The parameters of the area light source are estimated by a novel algorithm which minimizes the matching error between the corresponding specular patches. Experiments on real images show that our method is accurate and robust in estimating the parameters of the area light source.