Title
Quality Evaluation of Image Dehazing Methods Using Synthetic Hazy Images
Abstract
To enhance the visibility and usability of images captured in hazy conditions, many image dehazing algorithms (DHAs) have been proposed. With so many image DHAs, there is need to evaluate and compare these DHAs. Due to the lack of the reference haze-free images, DHAs are generally evaluated qualitatively using real hazy images. But it is possible to perform quantitative evaluation using synthetic hazy images since the reference haze-free images are available and full-reference (FR) image quality assessment (IQA) measures can be utilized. In this paper, we follow this strategy and study DHA evaluation using synthetic hazy images systematically. We first build a synthetic haze removing quality (SHRQ) database. It consists of two subsets: regular and aerial image subsets, which include 360 and 240 dehazed images created from 45 and 30 synthetic hazy images using 8 DHAs, respectively. Since aerial imaging is an important application area of dehazing, we create an aerial image subset specifically. We then carry out subjective quality evaluation study on these two subsets. We observe that taking DHA evaluation as an exact FR IQA process is questionable, and the state-of-the-art FR IQA measures are not effective for DHA evaluation. Thus we propose a DHA quality evaluation method by integrating some dehazing-relevant features, including image structure recovering, color rendition, and over-enhancement of low-contrast areas. The proposed method works for both types of images, but we further improve it for aerial images by incorporating its specific characteristics. Experimental results on two subsets of the SHRQ database validate the effectiveness of the proposed measures.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1109/tmm.2019.2902097
IEEE Transactions on Multimedia
Keywords
Field
DocType
Atmospheric modeling,Image color analysis,Atmospheric measurements,Databases,Scattering,Computational modeling,Imaging
Computer vision,Visibility,Pattern recognition,Computer science,Usability,Image quality,Aerial image,Atmospheric measurements,Artificial intelligence,Image structure
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
21
9
1520-9210
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
5
0.37
0
Authors
9
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Xiongkuo Min133740.88
Guangtao Zhai21707145.33
Ke Gu3132177.21
Yucheng Zhu4355.71
Jiantao Zhou558078.87
Guodong Guo62548144.00
Xiaokang Yang73581238.09
Xinping Guan82791253.38
Wenjun Zhang91789177.28