A Hazy Image covered in Mist alongside a revised image improved by IIT Madras researchers.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras researchers have developed enhanced image processing techniques to mitigate the impact of haze on images captured by surveillance cameras. This, according to a statement released by the Chennai-based technological and engineering institute, can prove crucial in helping law enforcement agencies solve crimes and help the common public as many communities are now installing CCTVs to safeguard themselves.
This research can also be applied to self-driving and autonomous vehicles as they also require high-quality images taken by cameras for efficient and safe navigation, especially in urban areas, the statement said.
In order to tackle the issue of visibility of a camera goes down on foggy or hazy days, a team of researchers led by Prof ANRajagopalan, Institute Chair Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Madras, proposed a new approach to increase the visibility of images degraded by haze.
The results of their research were published in the prestigious international peer-reviewed journal of IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.
This, the Institute said, is a major step forward in the area of computational photography and image processing.
“Most computer vision applications including surveillance, terrain classification and autonomous navigation, among others, require high quality pictures and haze can severely undermine performance. ‘Image de-hazing' is beneficial even in personal and public transportation systems. Reducing the effect of haze is a very challenging problem, more so when only a single observation of the scene is available,” Prof Rajagopalan said while elaborating on their research and its impact.