A New Convolution Kernel for Atmospheric Point Spread Function Applied to Computer Vision

In this paper we introduce a new filter to approximate multiple scattering of light rays within a participating media. This filter is derived from the generalized Gaussian distribution GGD. It characterizes the Atmospheric Point Spread Function (APSF) and thus makes it possible to introduce three new approaches. First, it allows us to accurately simulate various weather conditions that induce multiple scattering including fog, haze, rain, etc. Second, it allows us to propose a new method for a cooperative and simultaneous estimation of visual cues, i.e., the identification of weather degradations and the estimation of optical thickness between two images of the same scene acquired under unknown weather conditions. Third, by combining this filter with two new sets of invariant features we recently developed, we obtain invariant features that can be used for the matching of atmospheric degraded images. The first set leads to atmospheric invariant features while the second one simultaneously provides atmospheric and geometric invariance.