Haze Removal by Modeling the Scattering Properties of the Medium

Abstract

This letter proposes a simple and effective method to remove haze from a single input foggy or underwater image. The algorithm is originated from the physically valid description of the transmission of the scattering light during the volumetric scattering medium, interpreting the formation of the haze with the layered transmission model. We establish the explicit expression of the transmittance with respect to statistics of the back scattered light in front of the scene. The parameters for the evaluation of the transmittance can be estimated by the second order statistics of the back scattered light both with and without the scene. Since the transmittance map is evaluated for each RGB channel respectively, the color recovery by the proposed method is wavelength dependent and physically valid. Experimental results on both terrestrial and underwater images are given, which show the effectiveness and advantage of the proposed method.