Patent Document ID: 20090295933
Application ID: 12227022
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. An imaging method for recovering object visibility in a scene containing a scattering medium, said method comprising the steps of: (i) illuminating the scene with an active illumination system on which a polarizer is mounted; (ii) mounting a polarization analyzer on an image acquisition equipment; (iii) acquiring a first frame of the scene; (iv) changing the polarization state of the polarizer or of the polarization analyzer or of both; (v) acquiring one or more additional polarize frames of the scene or acquiring one or more additional unpolarized frames of the scene; (vi) estimating the degree of polarization of backscatter in every point of said scene; and (vii) using a linear combination of all or part of the frames from (i)-(v) and the analysis performed in (vi) (viii) to obtain one or more enhanced images with improved contrast and brightness range across the field of view.