CoA: Towards Real Image Dehazing via Compression-and-Adaptation

Learning-based image dehazing algorithms have shown remarkable success in synthetic domains. However, real image dehazing is still in suspense due to computational resource constraints and the diversity of real-world scenes. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an algorithm that excels in both efficiency and adaptability to address real image dehazing effectively. This work proposes a Compression-and-Adaptation (CoA) computational flow to tackle these challenges in a divide-and-conquer perspective. First, model compression is performed in the synthetic domain to develop a compact dehazing parameter space, satisfying efficiency demands. Then, a bilevel adaptation in the real domain is introduced to be fearless in unknown real environments by aggregating the synthetic dehazing capabilities during the learning process. Leveraging a succinct design free from additional constraints, our CoA exhibits domain-irrelevant stability and model-agnostic flexibility, effectively bridging the model chasm between synthetic and real domains to further improve its practical utility. Extensive evaluations and analyses underscore the approach's superiority and effectiveness. The code will be made publicly available upon acceptance of this work.