Efficient High Dynamic Range Texture Compression

We present a novel compression method for high dynamic range (HDR) textures, targeted for future graphics hardware. Identifying that the existing solutions provide either very high image quality or very simple hardware implementation, we aim to achieve both features in a single solution. Our approach improves upon an existing technique by incorporating a simple chrominance coding that allows overall image quality on par with the state of the art, but at a substantially lower encoding and decoding complexity. The end result is what we believe to be an excellent compromise between image quality and efficiency of hardware implementations. We evaluate our compression method using common test images and established HDR image quality metrics. Additionally, we complement these results with error measurements in the CIE L*a*b* color space in order to separately assess the quality of luminance and chrominance information.