We propose a color transfer method to give fused multiband nighttime imagery a natural daytime color appearance in a simple and efficient way. Instead of using traditional _&rhookl;&agr;_&bgr; space, the proposed method transfers the color distribution of the target image (daylight color image) to the source image (fused multiband nighttime imagery) in a linear color space named IUV. The transformation between RGB and IUV spaces is simpler than that between RGB and _&rhookl;&agr;_&bgr; spaces, moreover, the IUV space is more suitable for image fusion. The IUV transform can be extended into a general formalism. We prove that color spaces conforming to this general IUV framework can produce same recoloring results as IUV space. Our experiments on infrared and visual images show that the IUV based color transfer method works surprisingly well for transferring natural color characteristics of daylight color images to false color fused multiband nighttime imagery. We also demonstrate that this method can be successfully applied to a variety of images. The images generated indicate the potential utility of IUV space in color image processing domains.

Date Published: 27 April 2007
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 6559, Enhanced and Synthetic Vision 2007, 65590L (27 April 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.720787

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6559:
Enhanced and Synthetic Vision 2007
Jacques G. Verly; Jeff J. Guell, Editor(s)