# Why are thermal images blurry

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.15800 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15800/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 28 Jul 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [Universal computational thermal imaging overcoming the ghosting effect](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01542/) (2026)
- [HADAR-Based Thermal Infrared Hyperspectral Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13664/) (2026)
- [RASMD: RGB And SWIR Multispectral Driving Dataset for Robust Perception in Adverse Conditions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07603/) (2025)
- [Ozone Cues Mitigate Reflected Downwelling Radiance in LWIR Absorption-Based Ranging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.00273/) (2026)
- [TeX-NeRF: Neural Radiance Fields from Pseudo-TeX Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04873/) (2024)
- [MTSIC: Multi-stage Transformer-based GAN for Spectral Infrared Image Colorization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.17540/) (2025)
- [Breaking Degradation Coupling: A Structural Entropy Guided Decoupled Framework and Benchmark for Infrared Enhancement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.22886/) (2026)
- [Expandable, Compressible, Mineable: Open-World Thermal Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16967/) (2026)
- [TeX-1500: A Paired Real-World LWIR Hyperspectral Dataset and Benchmark for Temperature-Emissivity-Texture Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.03806/) (2026)
- [Unpaired RGB-Thermal Gaussian-Splatting Using Visual Geometric Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.05491/) (2026)
- [IR275K: A Benchmark for Infrared Multi-Frame Super-Resolution Toward Efficient Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.22380/) (2026)
- [Passive LWIR Hyperspectral Ranging via Transmittance Extraction and Distance Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.28967/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The resolution of optical imaging is limited by diffraction as well as detector noise. However, thermal imaging exhibits an additional unique phenomenon of ghosting which results in blurry and low-texture images. Here, we provide a detailed view of thermal physics-driven texture and explain why it vanishes in thermal images capturing heat radiation. We show that spectral resolution in thermal imagery can help recover this texture, and we provide algorithms to recover texture close to the ground truth. Using a simulator for complex 3D scenes, we discuss the interplay of geometric textures and non-uniform temperatures which is common in real-world thermal imaging. We demonstrate the failure of traditional thermal imaging to recover ground truth in multiple scenarios while our thermal perception approach successfully recovers geometric textures. Finally, we put forth an experimentally feasible infrared Bayer-filter approach to achieve thermal perception in pitch darkness as vivid as optical imagery in broad daylight.