BDPK: Bayesian Dehazing Using Prior Knowledge

Atmospheric scattering model (ASM) has been widely used in hazy image restoration. However, the recovered albedo might deviate from the real scene once the input hazy image cannot fully satisfy the model's assumptions such as the homogeneous atmosphere and even illumination. In this paper, we break these limitations and redefine a more reliable ASM (RASM) that is extremely adaptable for various practical scenarios. Benefiting from RASM, a simple yet effective Bayesian dehazing algorithm (BDPK) is further proposed based on the prior knowledge. Our strategy is to convert the single image dehazing problem into a maximum a-posteriori probability one that can be approximated as an optimization function using the existing priori constraints. To efficiently solve this optimization function, the alternating minimizing technique is introduced, which enables us to directly restore the scene albedo. Experiments on a number of challenging images reveal the power of BDPK on removing haze and verify its superiority over several state-of-the-art techniques in terms of quality and efficiency.