An objective assessment method for image defogging effects

Methods to identify image defogging effects can help evaluate and optimise image defogging algorithms. However, such methods that assess the performance of defogging algorithms or compare them with other algorithms are lacking, whereas existing assessment methods are mostly inadequate. Two new methods to assess defogging effects are therefore proposed in this study. The first method generates synthetic foggy images by using the transmission map of an image degradation model in a full-reference manner. The second method develops an assessment system from the perspective of human visual perception in a no-reference manner. Experimental results from a comparison of defogging algorithms demonstrate the effectiveness and reliability of our proposed methods. Compared with other existing methods, our proposed methods efficiently assess defogging effects from generated synthetic images and human visual perceptions. These methods represent novel approaches to measure defogging effects.