# NightHazeFormer: Single Nighttime Haze Removal Using Prior Query Transformer

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.09533 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.09533/

## Key facts

- Cited by 19 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 23 of its 78 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 May 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 23 of 23)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [MUSIQ: Multi-scale Image Quality Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.05997/) (2021)
- [Simple Baselines for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04676/) (2022)
- [Zero-Reference Deep Curve Estimation for Low-Light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.06826/) (2020)
- [DehazeNet: An End-to-End System for Single Image Haze Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.07661/) (2016)
- [FFA-Net: Feature Fusion Attention Network for Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07559/) (2019)
- [TransWeather: Transformer-based Restoration of Images Degraded by Adverse Weather Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14813/) (2021)
- [HINet: Half Instance Normalization Network for Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.06086/) (2021)
- [Contrastive Learning for Compact Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09367/) (2021)
- [RIDCP: Revitalizing Real Image Dehazing via High-Quality Codebook Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.03994/) (2023)
- [Nighttime Dehazing with a Synthetic Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.03864/) (2020)
- [MSP-Former: Multi-Scale Projection Transformer for Single Image Desnowing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05621/) (2022)
- [Deep Fourier Up-Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.05171/) (2022)
- [Underwater Light Field Retention : Neural Rendering for Underwater Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11006/) (2022)
- [Source-Free Domain Adaptation for Real-world Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.06644/) (2022)
- [Towards Real-time High-Definition Image Snow Removal: Efficient Pyramid Network with Asymmetrical Encoder-decoder Architecture](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05605/) (2022)
- [DEHRFormer: Real-time Transformer for Depth Estimation and Haze Removal from Varicolored Haze Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.06905/) (2023)
- [Complementary Feature Enhanced Network with Vision Transformer for Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.07100/) (2021)
- [RSFDM-Net: Real-time Spatial and Frequency Domains Modulation Network for Underwater Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.12186/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Sparse Sampling Transformer with Uncertainty-Driven Ranking for Unified Removal of Raindrops and Rain Streaks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14153/) (2023)
- [Enhancing Visibility in Nighttime Haze Images Using Guided APSF and Gradient Adaptive Convolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.01738/) (2023)
- [Depth Information Assisted Collaborative Mutual Promotion Network for Single Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01105/) (2024)
- [Teaching Tailored to Talent: Adverse Weather Restoration via Prompt Pool and Depth-Anything Constraint](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.15739/) (2024)
- [VersaT2I: Improving Text-to-Image Models with Versatile Reward](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18493/) (2024)
- [AGLLDiff: Guiding Diffusion Models Towards Unsupervised Training-free Real-world Low-light Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14900/) (2024)
- [VQCNIR: Clearer Night Image Restoration with Vector-Quantized Codebook](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08606/) (2023)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Underwater Image Enhancement Based on Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19684/) (2024)
- [RSHazeDiff: A Unified Fourier-aware Diffusion Model for Remote Sensing Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.09083/) (2024)
- [Unsupervised Low-light Image Enhancement with Lookup Tables and Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18899/) (2024)
- [UDPNet: Unleashing Depth-based Priors for Robust Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06909/) (2026)
- [TSNet:A Two-stage Network for Image Dehazing with Multi-scale Fusion and Adaptive Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02460/) (2024)
- [Clear Nights Ahead: Towards Multi-Weather Nighttime Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.16479/) (2025)
- [Haze-Aware Attention Network for Single-Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11505/) (2024)
- [DGNet: Dynamic Gradient-Guided Network for Water-Related Optics Image Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06999/) (2023)
- [Multi-Knowledge-oriented Nighttime Haze Imaging Enhancer for Vision-driven Intelligent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.07351/) (2025)
- [The Devil is in the Darkness: Diffusion-Based Nighttime Dehazing Anchored in Brightness Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.02395/) (2025)
- [Nighttime Hazy Image Enhancement via Progressively and Mutually Reinforcing Night-Haze Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.01998/) (2026)
- [Transmittance-Guided Structure-Texture Decomposition for Nighttime Image Dehazing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.29507/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Nighttime image dehazing is a challenging task due to the presence of multiple types of adverse degrading effects including glow, haze, blurry, noise, color distortion, and so on. However, most previous studies mainly focus on daytime image dehazing or partial degradations presented in nighttime hazy scenes, which may lead to unsatisfactory restoration results. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end transformer-based framework for nighttime haze removal, called NightHazeFormer. Our proposed approach consists of two stages: supervised pre-training and semi-supervised fine-tuning. During the pre-training stage, we introduce two powerful priors into the transformer decoder to generate the non-learnable prior queries, which guide the model to extract specific degradations. For the fine-tuning, we combine the generated pseudo ground truths with input real-world nighttime hazy images as paired images and feed into the synthetic domain to fine-tune the pre-trained model. This semi-supervised fine-tuning paradigm helps improve the generalization to real domain. In addition, we also propose a large-scale synthetic dataset called UNREAL-NH, to simulate the real-world nighttime haze scenarios comprehensively. Extensive experiments on several synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of our NightHazeFormer over state-of-the-art nighttime haze removal methods in terms of both visually and quantitatively.