Since the target in a pseudo color fusion image based on the classical Waxman fusion model is not clear, this paper proposes an improved receptive field fusion model. The infrared image and visible light image were respectively ON against enhanced and OFF against enhanced. The infrared ON against enhanced image was fed into an center exciting area of the center-surround receptive field model and the visible light OFF against enhanced image was fed into a surround inhibition zone to get the fusion image B component. Then, the infrared OFF against image was fed into a center inhibition zone of the center-surrounding receptive field model and the visible light ON against enhanced image was fed into the center exciting area to get the fusion image of G component. Furthermore, the visible ON against enhanced image was directly taken as the R component of fused image and to output the pseudo color fusion image. Finally, the fusion experiments were performed for two groups of original images by Waxman model and proposed model and the fusion results were evaluated by the information entropy of fused image and the average gradient. The results show that the first set data by proposed method are higher 0.314 6 and 0.004 1 respectively than that of Waxman fusion model, and that of the second set data by proposed method are higher 0.255 1 and 0.255 1 than that of the Waxman fusion model. It concludes that fusion effect of the proposed fusion model is superior to that of the classical Waxman model.