Research on algorithm of night vision image fusion and coloration

Abstract

An new color image fusion method is presented based on dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) and Lαβ space for visual and infrared night image fusion. The color transfer technology is conducted to colorize the gray-scale visual image based on Lαβ space and the three component values of L, α and β can be gained. The appropriate dynamic range of gray image in Lα β space is proposed, and the reason of oversaturated colors is analyzed. The DT-CWT is applied in gray image fusion processing because of it's properties: shift invariance, directional selectivity, in order to obtaining exact position and clear image presentation. The different fusion rule is used aiming at high and low frequency components. The weighted average method is employed to low frequency part, and the high frequency parts are of selection greater local energy. The component L of colorized visual image is replaced by the gray-scale fused image. And the color fusion image is obtained by from Lα β to RGB(R: red, G: green, B:blue). The experiment results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve three requirements: detectability of the target, clear details and natural colors.