# Simulating Refractive Distortions and Weather-Induced Artifacts for Resource-Constrained Autonomous Perception

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.05536 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.05536/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 15 of its 33 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [SegFormer: Simple and Efficient Design for Semantic Segmentation with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.15203/) (2021)
- [Palette: Image-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.05826/) (2021)
- [UNet++: Redesigning Skip Connections to Exploit Multiscale Features in Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05074/) (2019)
- [Semantic Foggy Scene Understanding with Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07819/) (2017)
- [Domain Adaptive Object Detection for Autonomous Driving under Foggy Weather](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15176/) (2022)
- [Diff-UNet: A Diffusion Embedded Network for Volumetric Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.10326/) (2023)
- [Flare7K++: Mixing Synthetic and Real Datasets for Nighttime Flare Removal and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04236/) (2023)
- [SimFIR: A Simple Framework for Fisheye Image Rectification with Self-supervised Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.09040/) (2023)
- [Divergence-Free Shape Interpolation and Correspondence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.10417/) (2018)
- [Diffusion Restoration Adapter for Real-World Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.20679/) (2025)
- [Public Parking Spot Detection And Geo-localization Using Transfer Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.00213/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [LLMs and Agentic AI in Insurance Decision-Making: Opportunities and Challenges For Africa](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15110/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The scarcity of autonomous vehicle datasets from developing regions, particularly across Africa's diverse urban, rural, and unpaved roads, remains a key obstacle to robust perception in low-resource settings. We present a procedural augmentation pipeline that enhances low-cost monocular dashcam footage with realistic refractive distortions and weather-induced artifacts tailored to challenging African driving scenarios. Our refractive module simulates optical effects from low-quality lenses and air turbulence, including lens distortion, Perlin noise, Thin-Plate Spline (TPS), and divergence-free (incompressible) warps. The weather module adds homogeneous fog, heterogeneous fog, and lens flare. To establish a benchmark, we provide baseline performance using three image restoration models. To support perception research in underrepresented African contexts, without costly data collection, labeling, or simulation, we release our distortion toolkit, augmented dataset splits, and benchmark results.