Single image dehazing based on contrast enhancement

A simple and adaptive single image dehazing algorithm is proposed in this work. Based on the observation that a hazy image has low contrast in general, we attempt to restore the original image by enhancing the contrast. First, the proposed algorithm estimates the airlight in a given hazy image based on the quad-tree subdivision. Then, the proposed algorithm estimates the transmission map to maximize the contrast of the output image. To measure the contrast, we develop a cost function, which consists of a standard deviation term and a histogram uniformness term. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can remove haze efficiently and reconstruct fine details in original scenes clearly.