A General Perceptual Infrared and Visible Image Fusion Framework Based on Linear Filter and Side Window Filtering Technology

Recently, edge-preserving filters have achieved great success in infrared (IR) and visible (VI) image fusion field. However, most edge-preserving filters are complex. In this paper, with the side window filtering technology by which most filters can improve their edge-preserving capabilities, we propose a general perceptual IR and VI image fusion framework with simple linear filter. Firstly, the source images are decomposed into edge feature components, hybrid components and base components by using linear filter and its side window version. Then, these components are combined by max-absolute fusion rule and improved max-absolute fusion rule. Finally, the fused image is reconstructed by adding all the fused components. In our experiments, two popular linear filters, i.e., box filter and Gaussian filter, are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed framework. Experimental results show that the proposed fusion framework can obtain better perceptual fusion results than compared methods.