A new method for the restoration of degraded images in inhomogeneous atmosphere was proposed using the optical model of image degradation in inhomogeneous path.Firstly

Sky radiances at observer corresponding to the slant directions of each object in image were estimated.Then

based on the prior knowledge of dark channel

the rough relative distances of scene objects in image were estimated approximately

and as a key point

the ratio factor which reflects the inhomogeneous property of visual path in the degradation model was obtained

and subsequently atmospheric transmittance of imaging path was computed.Finally

using these parameters computed above

the degraded image can be restored by the inverse process of the optical degradation model.The experimental results show that the new algorithm is effective for actual outdoor degraded images.