Optical turbulence in the atmosphere causes defocus, blur, and wander of images captured over long distances, which can significantly degrade their quality. Turbulence is a manifestation of variations in the index of refraction, which are caused by local variations in air temperature, pressure, humidity, gas content, and other factors. Turbulence can be quantified by the refractive index structure function parameter C2n. Simulation of images after propagation through an atmosphere of a specific C2n, along with measurement of the observed C2n from images, is thus of interest for a variety of agricultural, environmental, and defense applications. We discuss the generation of simulated imagery after propagation through an atmosphere of a defined C2n using various algorithms, then examine methods to determine the observed C2n from the generated images. Finally, we choose and test an algorithm to generate images and another to estimate C2n, then compare and contrast the observed C2n to the defined C2n in each case to observe how the simulation method and measurement method perform.
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