A New Algorithm for Calculating the Daytime Visibility Based on the Color Digital Camera

There are some deficiencies in the traditional daytime visibility calculation method using CCD digital camera: visibility observation value is accurate while using the artificial objects but expensive; nonzero internal reflection coefficient of the target lead to inaccurate visibility observation results when using natural objects as the target. A new daytime visibility algorithm based on color CCD digital camera is proposed in this paper: we use the color images obtained by the CCD digital camera, then estimate transmission of color digital image by using the knowledge of dark channel prior, and obtain the atmospheric attenuation coefficient form transmission to calculating visibility value. The experimental data show that the max-error of the proposed algorithm is less than 20% which conform to the error provisions of WMO on the meteorological visibility instrument, and simple operation, without artificial target, low cost.