Reducing the dynamic range of infrared images based on block-priority equalization and compression of histograms

Objectives. The problem of reducing the dynamic range of infrared images for their reproduction on display devices with a narrow dynamic range is considered. The method of local image histogram equalization based on the integral distribution function of brightness is investigated. To transform the brightness of a pixel, this method uses an approximation of the local alignment values of the nearest blocks of pixels of original image. This in-creases the local contrast of the image, but leads to high computational complexity, which is increasing while block size decreases. The aim of the work is to reduce the computational complexity of adaptive equalization and compression of infrared image histograms while reducing their dynamic range.

Methods. Image processing methods are used.

Results. To reduce the computational complexity of transforming the dynamic range of infrared images, a block-priority modification of the adaptive histogram equalization method is proposed. The modification is based on the division of the set of image blocks into two subsets of high-priority and low-priority blocks depend-ing on their brightness statistical properties. When interpolating pixel values, high-priority blocks use local alignment values, and low-priority blocks use global alignment values. As a result, the total number of alignment vectors is reduced in proportion to the ratio of subsets sizes and the computational complexity of the dynamic range transformation is reduced.

Conclusion. When changing the ratio of the number of high-priority blocks of infrared image pixels to the number of all blocks in the range of 0.25–0.75, the proposed algorithm is more efficient than global and adaptive histogram equalization algorithms.

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