RGB-to-Polarization Estimation: A New Task and Benchmark Study

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Main Authors: Lin, Beibei, Yuan, Zifeng, Chen, Tingting
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lin, Beibei
Yuan, Zifeng
Chen, Tingting
author_facet Lin, Beibei
Yuan, Zifeng
Chen, Tingting
contents Polarization images provide rich physical information that is fundamentally absent from standard RGB images, benefiting a wide range of computer vision applications such as reflection separation and material classification. However, the acquisition of polarization images typically requires additional optical components, which increases both the cost and the complexity of the applications. To bridge this gap, we introduce a new task: RGB-to-polarization image estimation, which aims to infer polarization information directly from RGB images. In this work, we establish the first comprehensive benchmark for this task by leveraging existing polarization datasets and evaluating a diverse set of state-of-the-art deep learning models, including both restoration-oriented and generative architectures. Through extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis, our benchmark not only establishes the current performance ceiling of RGB-to-polarization estimation, but also systematically reveals the respective strengths and limitations of different model families -- such as direct reconstruction versus generative synthesis, and task-specific training versus large-scale pre-training. In addition, we provide some potential directions for future research on polarization estimation. This benchmark is intended to serve as a foundational resource to facilitate the design and evaluation of future methods for polarization estimation from standard RGB inputs.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_13050
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RGB-to-Polarization Estimation: A New Task and Benchmark Study
Lin, Beibei
Yuan, Zifeng
Chen, Tingting
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Polarization images provide rich physical information that is fundamentally absent from standard RGB images, benefiting a wide range of computer vision applications such as reflection separation and material classification. However, the acquisition of polarization images typically requires additional optical components, which increases both the cost and the complexity of the applications. To bridge this gap, we introduce a new task: RGB-to-polarization image estimation, which aims to infer polarization information directly from RGB images. In this work, we establish the first comprehensive benchmark for this task by leveraging existing polarization datasets and evaluating a diverse set of state-of-the-art deep learning models, including both restoration-oriented and generative architectures. Through extensive quantitative and qualitative analysis, our benchmark not only establishes the current performance ceiling of RGB-to-polarization estimation, but also systematically reveals the respective strengths and limitations of different model families -- such as direct reconstruction versus generative synthesis, and task-specific training versus large-scale pre-training. In addition, we provide some potential directions for future research on polarization estimation. This benchmark is intended to serve as a foundational resource to facilitate the design and evaluation of future methods for polarization estimation from standard RGB inputs.
title RGB-to-Polarization Estimation: A New Task and Benchmark Study
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.13050