Single Image Haze Removal with Pixel-based Transmission Map Estimation

Adversary imaging condition such as in a hazy weather is a challenge in the community of image processing. To address the challenge of haze removal, several model-based approaches have been reported recently. Among them, a single image haze removal scheme based on dark channel prior (DCP) was presented in [1] and has been getting popular because of its satisfactory performance for most of cases. However, it is well-known that the DCP scheme is inherent of two fundamental problems: high computational cost and overexposure. In this paper, the objective of proposed dehazing algorithm (PDA) is to deal with the two problems in [1], where atmospheric light is estimated from the dark channel and pixel-based transmission map estimation is employed. Examples are given to verify the PDA where comparison with the DCP scheme and other wellknown schemes are made as well. The simulation results indicate that the PDA has similar or better dehazing performance than the compared schemes in the given examples, when both mood retention and visibility improvement are considered. Key-Words: haze removal, dark channel prior, halo, soft matting, transmission refinement, over-exposure