Color night vision based on color transfer in YUV color space

Abstract

To obtain a color night vision image, we proposed a color transfer algorithm in YUV color space based on the color transfer algorithm in <i>l</i>&alpha;&beta; color space which Reinhard proposed. After rendering the simple statistics (means and standard deviations) of the target image to the source image, the color appearance of the target image is transferred to the source image. 2D chromatic histogram (UV histogram) which can help to find an appropriate target image is established. Finally, we illustrated several examples of color transfer to multi-band fused images which are fused in MIT fusion scheme. After a color fused image is obtained, the color transfer is executed to render the color information of the target image to the fusion image. The final image could have a day-like color appearance. Besides, the algorithm has less operation than which in <i>l</i>&alpha;&beta; color space because of less transform complexity. It can be realized in real time in digital signal processors without color space transformation between RGB and YUV.