System and method for performing sky-segmentation

A computing system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a memory system comprising one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• identifying a first image;
• identifying a number of edges in the first image;
• determining a distribution based at least partially upon an intensity of each pixel in the first image when the number of edges is greater than a predetermined threshold;
• determining that the distribution approximates a bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions;
• in response to determining that the distribution approximates the bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions, dividing the first image to produce a second image, wherein the second image comprises a plurality of first pixels corresponding to a ground region and a plurality of second pixels corresponding to a sky region;
• and
• determining that a horizon is defined between the first pixels and the second pixels.

A computing system comprising:

• one or more processors;
• and
• a memory system comprising one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations, the operations comprising:
• identifying a first image, wherein the first image is captured by a camera on an aircraft in flight;
• identifying a number of edges in the first image;
• determining a histogram based at least partially upon an intensity of each pixel in the first image when the number of edges is greater than a predetermined threshold;
• determining that the histogram more closely approximates a bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions than a unimodal Gaussian distribution, wherein determining that the histogram more closely approximates the bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions comprises determining a first error between the histogram and the bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions that corresponds to the histogram, wherein the determination that the histogram more closely approximates the bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions is based at least partially upon the first error;
• in response to determining that the histogram more closely approximates the bimodal mixture of Gaussian distributions, dividing the first image to produce a second image, wherein the second image comprises a plurality of first pixels corresponding to a ground region and a plurality of second pixels corresponding to a sky region, wherein the first pixels have a first color, and wherein the second pixels have a second, different color;
• filtering the second image to produce a third image;
• determining that a horizon is defined between the first pixels and the second pixels in the third image;
• and
• combining the first image and at least a portion of the third image to produce a fourth image, wherein the fourth image also comprises the horizon.