Quality Assessment of Deep Learning Based Super Resolution Techniques on Thermal Images

This paper presents a new quality assessment parameter for the evaluation of deep learning based super resolution techniques applied on thermal images. Three widely used deep learning-based models namely Super-Resolution Convolutional Neural Network (SRCNN), Thermal Enhancement Network (TEN) and Very Deep Super Resolution (VDSR) have been implemented for achieving super resolution of thermal images. Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) have been the most widely used conventional evaluation metrics for performance measurement of super resolution algorithms. Since these parameters require a reference image for the evaluation of the resultant images, we propose a new quality assessment parameter based on strength of the edges. Edge detection of the super resoluted image is performed utilizing Canny Edge Detection method and the entropy of the edge detection image is computed to provide a new parameter, Edge Detection Entropy Score (EDES). For the comparison and validation of the proposed image quality assessment techniques, Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of the target images have been obtained to be used as a benchmark. The obtained results indicate that the proposed EDES of the super resoluted images has high degree of correlation with the MOS as well as PSNR and SSIM.