Infrared and visible image fusion based on contrast enhancement guided filter and infrared feature decomposition

Infrared (IR) and visible (VIS) images represent the features of the scene at different wavelengths, and the features they contain have different properties. Therefore, the traditional weighted fusion strategy is challenging to preserve the different types of feature information. In addition, VIS images are highly susceptible to bad weather, which also seriously affects the quality of fused images in complex environments. To solve the above problems, we propose a feature enhancement fusion method. First, a fusion model called contrast enhancement guided filter (CEGF) is proposed. The new model enables the texture information of VIS images to be presented with the intensity of infrared pixels, which solves the problem of combining different attribute features and removes the influence of harsh lighting conditions. To improve the visibility of texture details under different lighting conditions, a contrast modulation factor is added to the cost function design of the filter to enhance the contrast of visible details. Second, we use a dual-scale decomposition strategy to enhance the infrared feature information of the fusion results. Finally, we apply the method of this paper with ten classical image fusion algorithms in two types of datasets. The visual effect and objective evaluation of the fusion results verify that the proposed method preserves the characteristics of the high contrast of IR images and improves the visibility of infrared scenes for subsequent target identification and detection.