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Single Image Dehazing and Non-uniform Illumination Enhancement: A Z-Score Approach

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Abstract

This paper proposes a novel enhancement approach using Z-score for images captured under hazy and non-uniform illumination conditions for multimedia applications. The proposed approach aims to estimate the scene transmission using Z-score-based weighting function and global atmospheric light for image dehazing. On the contrary, the proposed approach equalizes the illumination channel using Z-score weighting function of non-uniformly illuminated image. The comparative analysis to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach is also presented quantitatively and visually. The datasets used for comparison are realistic single image dehazing dataset, high dynamic range dataset, images captured with commercial DIgital CaMeras, MiddleBury Stereo dataset, and natural benchmarked images. The dehazed images are compared in terms of peak signal to noise ratio, structural similarity index, Lightness Order Error (LOE), and Naturalness Image Quality Evaluator (NIQE). The enhanced version of non-uniformly illuminated images is compared in terms of LOE and NIQE performance measures. The comparison shows that the proposed approach outperforms others.

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Sharma, T., Verma, N.K. Single Image Dehazing and Non-uniform Illumination Enhancement: A Z-Score Approach. SN COMPUT. SCI. 2, 488 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42979-021-00912-1

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