CW-THz image contrast enhancement using wavelet transform and Retinex

To enhance continuous wave terahertz (CW-THz) scanning images contrast and denoising, a method based on wavelet transform and Retinex theory was proposed. In this paper, the factors affecting the quality of CW-THz images were analysed. Second, an approach of combination of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and a designed nonlinear function in wavelet domain for the purpose of contrast enhancing was applied. Then, we combine the Retinex algorithm for further contrast enhancement. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method in qualitative and quantitative, it was compared with the adaptive histogram equalization method, the homomorphic filtering method and the SSR(Single-Scale-Retinex) method. Experimental results demonstrated that the presented algorithm can effectively enhance the contrast of CW-THZ image and obtain better visual effect.