A quantitative measure based infrared image enhancement algorithm using plateau histogram

A quantitative measure based scene-adaptive contrast enhancement algorithm for an infrared (IR) image is proposed. This method regulates the probability density function (PDF) of the raw image firstly, and then applies an improved plateau histogram equalization method whose plateau threshold is determined by the concavity of the regulated PDF to enhance the raw IR image. In the stepped parameter tuning process of the algorithm, quantitative measure EME is used as the criterion to determine the optimal PDF regulator factor and plateau threshold. The above improvements contribute to the performance promotion of the proposed algorithm, whose effectiveness is validated by the final assessment with visual quality and quantitative measures.