High bit-precision image acquisition and reconstruction by planned sensor distortion

We present a novel framework for high bit-precision image acquisition and reconstruction. This framework is designed based on the inherent Markov property of image signals. In acquisition stage, we add planned sensor distortion (PSD) to the analog image signal before feeding it to A/D converters (or quantizers) in camera sensor. In reconstruction stage, the acquired quantized pixel values are jointly combined to get the reconstructed signal with reduced uncertainty range. Advantages of proposed PSD framework include 1) simplicity: it does not require any change to the core hardware of existing A/D converters; 2) effectiveness: experiment results demonstrate significant PSNR gain over traditional methods (up to 10 dB when quantizer bit-depth is relatively low); and 3) generality: this framework can also be applied for acquisition of other analog signals, including audio, video, etc.