Single color image dehazing using variational partial differential equation

Imaging processing for single color hazing images was researched. Since the current methods could not recover the kind of images with the scene depth changing fiercely, a single color image dehazing algorithm was introduced on the basis of the atmosphere attenuate model and the variational partial differential equation. In this method, the median set operator in morphology was used to construct local white balance operator and to estimate the atmospherical optical parameters precisely. Then, a novel smoothness measure norm was designed to build up a variational energy model of the target image based on the total variation theory. In addition, the model was converted from partial differential equation into the Euler-Lagrange equation. Finally, the alternate semi-quadratic algorithm was used to solve the Euler-Lagrange equation, by which the operation speed of the algorithm was improved to be at 105 ms. The means of image entropy and average gradient were taken as the evaluation indexes, and simulation results show that proposed method triggers an increase by 60% in operation performance while other control groups keep the improvement in 15% to 30%. This method improves the local region obviously and reaches the application requirement. ©, 2015, Chinese Academy of Sciences. All right reserved.