Infrared and visible image fusion algorithm based on Retinex⁃enhanced multiscale decomposition

Aiming at the problems of poor contrast of fusion results, blurring of target margins and loss of background detail information under low illumination conditions of traditional infrared and visible image fusion algorithms, an infrared and visible image fusion algorithm based on multi-scale decomposition with Retinex enhancement was proposed. Firstly, the single-scale Retinex(SSR) algorithm information enhancement process was performed on the weak visible image using Retinex. Secondly, the source image was multi-scale decomposed using cross bilateral filtering to successively obtain the image information of the base layer image and the detail layer, and the fusion method combining the absolute value maximization strategy and guided filtering was used for the base layer image, and the fusion method of constructing weight map and significant map was used for the detail layer image. Finally, the processed base layer image and detail layer image were weighted to obtain the fused image. From the subjective analysis, the proposed method could effectively extract and fuse the important information in the source image, and obtain the image with high fusion quality and natural and clear visual effect. From the objective evaluation, the average accuracy of the proposed method on AG, SF, CE, and FMI was optimal when compared quantitatively with various fusion results.