Contrast enhancement in polarimetric imaging with correlated noise fluctuations

Abstract

We compare the measurement precision of a polarimetric camera to that of a simple intensity camera when imaging a partially polarized light-mark embedded in an intense and partially polarized background. We show that the gain in measurement precision while using a polarimetric camera is maximized when the noise fluctuations on the two polarimetric channels are significantly correlated. Further, we implement a snapshot polarimetric camera for long distance imaging of a highly polarized light source through fog and compare the contrast obtained using various representations of the polarimetric images. We show that the representation that provides the best contrast depends on the visibility conditions and matches well with theoretical predictions.