Maritime infrared image enhancement based on morphological pseudotransmittance modulation and radiation source enhancement

Abstract

To address the problems of low contrast and fuzzy details in maritime infrared images, this paper constructs a pseudotransmittance model based on the principles of infrared radiation imaging, and proposes an enhancement algorithm of morphology single-scale pseudotransmittance modulation and radiation source enhancement. First, the original image is adaptively segmented to generate the radiation source region and the radiation source suppressed background. Then, the pseudotransmittance is calculated by estimating the radiation of the background through morphological methods. Finally, the pseudotransmittance is used to modulate the original image for background enhancement and the radiation source detail is enhanced as well. On this basis, an algorithm for maritime infrared image enhancement with morphological multiscale pseudotransmittance modulation and radiation source hierarchical fusion is developed to overcome the problem of edge overenhancement and neighbourhood enhancement. Experiments show that our methods perform well in detail and contrast enhancement and outperform other methods in both qualitative and quantitative evaluations.