Complex smoke removal in image: Integrating frequency learning network with data synthesis method

Abstract

This paper introduces a novel neural network architecture and an enhanced data synthesis method that significantly boost the performance in removing complex smoke from images. The architecture features a multi-branch and multi-scale feature fusion design, which effectively integrates multiple feature streams and adaptively restores the background by identifying specific smoke characteristics within the image. A newly designed Fourier residual block is incorporated to capture frequency domain information, enabling the network to process and transform information across both spatial and frequency domains. To improve the network’s generalization ability and robustness, an in-depth analysis of the imaging process in smoky environments was conducted, leading to an improved method for synthesizing smoke images. This methodology facilitates the creation of a more varied and realistic training dataset, substantially enhancing the neural network’s capabilities in image restoration. Experimental results show that this approach is highly effective on both synthetic and real-world smoke datasets, outperforming existing image de-smoking methods in terms of quantitative metrics and visual perception. The code for this method is available at https://github.com/Exiagit/MFSR.