Image processing applications commonly assume a relatively transparent
transmission medium, unaltered by the atmospheric conditions. Outdoor vision
applications such as surveillance systems, intelligent vehicles, satellite imaging,
or outdoor object recognition systems need optimal visibility conditions in order
to detect and process extracted features in a reliable fashion. Since haze
degradation effects depend on the distance, as disclosed by previous studies [1,
2] and observed as well in our experiments (see Fig. 1), standard contrast enhancement
filters such as histogram stretching and equalization, linear mapping,
or gamma correction are limited to perform the required task introducing halos
artifacts and distorting the color. The contrast degradation of a hazy image