Apical licenses to Samsung

Apical & Samsung Electronics, have entered into a licensing agreement for the use of Apical’s iridix image processing IP core in Samsung’s imaging products.

iridix provides sophisticated dynamic range correction, based on original research into the way the human eye adapts to different lighting environments. When integrated into a camera imaging pipeline, it enables more natural, vivid images & video under a wide range of shooting conditions.

Most cameras find it difficult to capture satisfying images under uneven lighting conditions, for example when the subject is in shadow, or at times of the day when the eye strongly adjusts the perceived image to compensate for changes in the quality of light. Conventional auto or manual exposure algorithms find such scenes difficult to balance, often resulting in images with weak contrast and incorrect exposure of shadows and highlights.

iridix applies adaptive tone mapping locally to each pixel of each frame, resulting in images which closely resemble the perception of the original scene by the photographer.
The iridix IP core, version 7 of which was released in the second quarter this year, combines professional/broadcast -level image quality with compact, low-power hardware implementation suitable for any digital imaging device.