Showing papers on "Median filter published in 2006"

A switching median filter with boundary discriminative noise detection for extremely corrupted images

Abstract: A novel switching median filter incorporating with a powerful impulse noise detection method, called the boundary discriminative noise detection (BDND), is proposed in this paper for effectively denoising extremely corrupted images. To determine whether the current pixel is corrupted, the proposed BDND algorithm first classifies the pixels of a localized window, centering on the current pixel, into three groups-lower intensity impulse noise, uncorrupted pixels, and higher intensity impulse noise. The center pixel will then be considered as "uncorrupted," provided that it belongs to the "uncorrupted" pixel group, or "corrupted." For that, two boundaries that discriminate these three groups require to be accurately determined for yielding a very high noise detection accuracy-in our case, achieving zero miss-detection rate while maintaining a fairly low false-alarm rate, even up to 70% noise corruption. Four noise models are considered for performance evaluation. Extensive simulation results conducted on both monochrome and color images under a wide range (from 10% to 90%) of noise corruption clearly show that our proposed switching median filter substantially outperforms all existing median-based filters, in terms of suppressing impulse noise while preserving image details, and yet, the proposed BDND is algorithmically simple, suitable for real-time implementation and application.

New insights into the noise reduction Wiener filter

Abstract: The problem of noise reduction has attracted a considerable amount of research attention over the past several decades. Among the numerous techniques that were developed, the optimal Wiener filter can be considered as one of the most fundamental noise reduction approaches, which has been delineated in different forms and adopted in various applications. Although it is not a secret that the Wiener filter may cause some detrimental effects to the speech signal (appreciable or even significant degradation in quality or intelligibility), few efforts have been reported to show the inherent relationship between noise reduction and speech distortion. By defining a speech-distortion index to measure the degree to which the speech signal is deformed and two noise-reduction factors to quantify the amount of noise being attenuated, this paper studies the quantitative performance behavior of the Wiener filter in the context of noise reduction. We show that in the single-channel case the a posteriori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (defined after the Wiener filter) is greater than or equal to the a priori SNR (defined before the Wiener filter), indicating that the Wiener filter is always able to achieve noise reduction. However, the amount of noise reduction is in general proportional to the amount of speech degradation. This may seem discouraging as we always expect an algorithm to have maximal noise reduction without much speech distortion. Fortunately, we show that speech distortion can be better managed in three different ways. If we have some a priori knowledge (such as the linear prediction coefficients) of the clean speech signal, this a priori knowledge can be exploited to achieve noise reduction while maintaining a low level of speech distortion. When no a priori knowledge is available, we can still achieve a better control of noise reduction and speech distortion by properly manipulating the Wiener filter, resulting in a suboptimal Wiener filter. In case that we have multiple microphone sensors, the multiple observations of the speech signal can be used to reduce noise with less or even no speech distortion

Despeckling of medical ultrasound images

Abstract: Speckle noise is an inherent property of medical ultrasound imaging, and it generally tends to reduce the image resolution and contrast, thereby reducing the diagnostic value of this imaging modality. As a result, speckle noise reduction is an important prerequisite, whenever ultrasound imaging is used for tissue characterization. Among the many methods that have been proposed to perform this task, there exists a class of approaches that use a multiplicative model of speckled image formation and take advantage of the logarithmical transformation in order to convert multiplicative speckle noise into additive noise. The common assumption made in a dominant number of such studies is that the samples of the additive noise are mutually uncorrelated and obey a Gaussian distribution. The present study shows conceptually and experimentally that this assumption is oversimplified and unnatural. Moreover, it may lead to inadequate performance of the speckle reduction methods. The study introduces a simple preprocessing procedure, which modifies the acquired radio-frequency images (without affecting the anatomical information they contain), so that the noise in the log-transformation domain becomes very close in its behavior to a white Gaussian noise. As a result, the preprocessing allows filtering methods based on assuming the noise to be white and Gaussian, to perform in nearly optimal conditions. The study evaluates performances of three different, nonlinear filters - wavelet denoising, total variation filtering, and anisotropic diffusion - and demonstrates that, in all these cases, the proposed preprocessing significantly improves the quality of resultant images. Our numerical tests include a series of computer-simulated and in vivo experiments.

Fast median and bilateral filtering

Abstract: Median filtering is a cornerstone of modern image processing and is used extensively in smoothing and de-noising applications. The fastest commercial implementations (e.g. in Adobe® Photoshop® CS2) exhibit O(r) runtime in the radius of the filter, which limits their usefulness in realtime or resolution-independent contexts. We introduce a CPU-based, vectorizable O(log r) algorithm for median filtering, to our knowledge the most efficient yet developed. Our algorithm extends to images of any bit-depth, and can also be adapted to perform bilateral filtering. On 8-bit data our median filter outperforms Photoshop's implementation by up to a factor of fifty.

Noise Estimation from a Single Image

Abstract: In order to work well, many computer vision algorithms require that their parameters be adjusted according to the image noise level, making it an important quantity to estimate. We show how to estimate an upper bound on the noise level from a single image based on a piecewise smooth image prior model and measured CCD camera response functions. We also learn the space of noise level functions how noise level changes with respect to brightness and use Bayesian MAP inference to infer the noise level function from a single image. We illustrate the utility of this noise estimation for two algorithms: edge detection and featurepreserving smoothing through bilateral filtering. For a variety of different noise levels, we obtain good results for both these algorithms with no user-specified inputs.

A fuzzy impulse noise detection and reduction method

Abstract: Removing or reducing impulse noise is a very active research area in image processing. In this paper we describe a new algorithm that is especially developed for reducing all kinds of impulse noise: fuzzy impulse noise detection and reduction method (FIDRM). It can also be applied to images having a mixture of impulse noise and other types of noise. The result is an image quasi without (or with very little) impulse noise so that other filters can be used afterwards. This nonlinear filtering technique contains two separated steps: an impulse noise detection step and a reduction step that preserves edge sharpness. Based on the concept of fuzzy gradient values, our detection method constructs a fuzzy set impulse noise. This fuzzy set is represented by a membership function that will be used by the filtering method, which is a fuzzy averaging of neighboring pixels. Experimental results show that FIDRM provides a significant improvement on other existing filters. FIDRM is not only very fast, but also very effective for reducing little as well as very high impulse noise.

An efficient detail-preserving approach for removing impulse noise in images

Abstract: In this letter, we present a new efficient algorithm for the removal of impulse noise from corrupted images while preserving image details. The algorithm is based on the alpha-trimmed mean, which is a special case of the order-statistics filter. However, unlike some of the previous techniques involving order-statistics filters, the proposed method uses the alpha-trimmed mean only in impulse noise detection instead of pixel value estimation. Once a noisy pixel is identified, its value is replaced by a linear combination of its original value and the median of its local window. Extensive computer simulations indicate that our algorithm provides a significant improvement over many other existing techniques

Efficient removal of impulse noise from digital images

Abstract: A new impulse noise removal technique is presented to restore digital images corrupted by impulse noise. The algorithm is based on fuzzy impulse detection technique, which can remove impulse noise efficiently from highly corrupted images while preserving image details. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed technique performs significantly better than many existing state-of-the-art algorithms. Due to its low complexity, the proposed algorithm is very suitable for hardware implementation. Therefore, it can be used to remove impulse noise in many consumer electronics products such as digital cameras and digital television (DTV) for its performance and simplicity.

Fuzzy Two-Step Filter for Impulse Noise Reduction From Color Images

Abstract: A new framework for reducing impulse noise from digital color images is presented, in which a fuzzy detection phase is followed by an iterative fuzzy filtering technique. We call this filter the fuzzy two-step color filter. The fuzzy detection method is mainly based on the calculation of fuzzy gradient values and on fuzzy reasoning. This phase determines three separate membership functions that are passed to the filtering step. These membership functions will be used as a representation of the fuzzy set impulse noise (one function for each color component). Our proposed new fuzzy method is especially developed for reducing impulse noise from color images while preserving details and texture. Experiments show that the proposed filter can be used for efficient removal of impulse noise from color images without distorting the useful information in the image

Image Deblurring in the Presence of Impulsive Noise

Abstract: Consider the problem of image deblurring in the presence of impulsive noise. Standard image deconvolution methods rely on the Gaussian noise model and do not perform well with impulsive noise. The main challenge is to deblur the image, recover its discontinuities and at the same time remove the impulse noise. Median-based approaches are inadequate, because at high noise levels they induce nonlinear distortion that hampers the deblurring process. Distinguishing outliers from edge elements is difficult in current gradient-based edge-preserving restoration methods. The suggested approach integrates and extends the robust statistics, line process (half quadratic) and anisotropic diffusion points of view. We present a unified variational approach to image deblurring and impulse noise removal. The objective functional consists of a fidelity term and a regularizer. Data fidelity is quantified using the robust modified L 1 norm, and elements from the Mumford-Shah functional are used for regularization. We show that the Mumford-Shah regularizer can be viewed as an extended line process. It reflects spatial organization properties of the image edges, that do not appear in the common line process or anisotropic diffusion. This allows to distinguish outliers from edges and leads to superior experimental results.

`Print and Scan' Resilient Data Hiding in Images

Abstract: Print-scan resilient data hiding finds important applications in document security and image copyright protection. This paper proposes methods to hide information into images that achieve robustness against printing and scanning with blind decoding. The selective embedding in low frequencies scheme hides information in the magnitude of selected low-frequency discrete Fourier transform coefficients. The differential quantization index modulation scheme embeds information in the phase spectrum of images by quantizing the difference in phase of adjacent frequency locations. A significant contribution of this paper is analytical and experimental modeling of the print-scan process, which forms the basis of the proposed embedding schemes. A novel approach for estimating the rotation undergone by the image during the scanning process is also proposed, which specifically exploits the knowledge of the digital halftoning scheme employed by the printer. Using the proposed methods, several hundred information bits can be embedded into images with perfect recovery against the print-scan operation. Moreover, the hidden images also survive several other attacks, such as Gaussian or median filtering, scaling or aspect ratio change, heavy JPEG compression, and rows and/or columns removal

A hybrid neuro-fuzzy filter for edge preserving restoration of images corrupted by impulse noise

Abstract: A new operator for restoring digital images corrupted by impulse noise is presented. The proposed operator is a hybrid filter obtained by appropriately combining a median filter, an edge detector, and a neuro-fuzzy network. The internal parameters of the neuro-fuzzy network are adaptively optimized by training. The training is easily accomplished by using simple artificial images that can be generated in a computer. The most distinctive feature of the proposed operator over most other operators is that it offers excellent line, edge, detail, and texture preservation performance while, at the same time, effectively removing noise from the input image. Extensive simulation experiments show that the proposed operator may be used for efficient restoration of digital images corrupted by impulse noise without distorting the useful information in the image.

Denoising of complex MRI data by wavelet-domain filtering: application to high-b-value diffusion-weighted imaging.

Abstract: The Rician distribution of noise in magnitude magnetic resonance (MR) images is particularly problematic in low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regions. The Rician noise distribution causes a nonzero minimum signal in the image, which is often referred to as the rectified noise floor. True low signal is likely to be concealed in the noise, and quantification is severely hampered in low-SNR regions. To address this problem we performed noise reduction (or denoising) by Wiener-like filtering in the wavelet domain. The filtering was applied to complex MRI data before construction of the magnitude image. The noise-reduction algorithm was applied to simulated and experimental diffusion-weighted (DW) images. Denoising considerably reduced the signal standard deviation (SD, by up to 87% in simulated images) and decreased the background noise floor (by approximately a factor of 6 in simulated and experimental images).

Single-image signal-to-noise ratio estimation.

Abstract: A method for estimating the signal-to-noise ratio from a single image is presented in this paper. The autocorrelation-based technique requires that image details be correlated over distances of a few pixels, while the noise is assumed to be uncorrelated from pixel to pixel. The latter is shown to be a good approximation in the case of scanning electron microscope (SEM) images provided that the video signal is not band limited. The noise component is derived from the difference between the image autocorrelation at zero offset and an estimate of the corresponding noise-free autocorrelation. Nonlinear effects introduced by intensity saturation and their implications on the image signal-to-noise ratio are also discussed.

A 2D multistage median filter to reduce random seismic noise

Abstract: Random noise lowers the S/N of seismic data and decreases the accuracy of dynamic and static corrections, thus degrading final data quality. A 2D multistage median filter (MLM) that effectively reduces the high-frequency random noise can be implemented by applying 1D median filters (MF) in several directions and choosing a value derived from them to output at the center of the 2D window. The choice of window size depends on the intensity of the random noise and the percentage of the input data samples within the window that contain noise. Synthetic data can be used to demonstrate how to choose the window size. The tendency of the method to damage the signal while reducing the noise can be minimized by optimizing window size and by applying two passes with modest-sized windows as opposed to a single pass with a larger window. Results of using the method on prestack and poststack data from the Songliao basin in China demonstrate that the method is effective at both stages.

Signal Processing in Analytical Chemistry

Abstract: Signal processing refers to a variety of operations that can be carried out on a continuous (analog) or discrete (digital) sequence of measurements in order to enhance the quality of information it is intended to convey. In the analog domain, electronic signal processing can encompass such operations as amplification, filtering, integration, differentiation, modulation/demodulation, peakdetection, and analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion. Digital signal processing can include a variety of filtering methods (e.g. polynomial least-squares smoothing, differentiation, median smoothing, matched filtering, boxcar averaging, interpolation, decimation, and Kalman filtering) and domain transformations (e.g. Fourier transform (FT), Hadamard transform (HT), and wavelet transform (WT)). Generally the objective is to separate the useful part of the signal from the part that contains no useful information (the noise) using either explicit or implicit models that distinguish these two components. Signal processing at various stages has become an integral part of most modern analytical measurement systems and plays a critical role in ensuring the quality of those measurements.

Suppression of Impulse Noise in Medical Images with the Use of Fuzzy Adaptive Median Filter

Abstract: A new rule based fuzzy filter for removal of highly impulse noise, called Rule Based Fuzzy Adaptive Median (RBFAM) Filter, is aimed to be discussed in this paper. The RBFAM filter is an improved version of Adaptive Median Filter (AMF) and is presented in the aim of noise reduction of images corrupted with additive impulse noise. The filter has three stages. Two of those stages are fuzzy rule based and last stage is based on standard median and adaptive median filter. The proposed filter can preserve image details better then AMF while suppressing additive salt&pepper or impulse type noise. In this paper, we placed our preference on bell-shaped membership function instead of triangular membership function in order to observe better results. Experimental results indicates that the proposed filter is improvable with increased fuzzy rules to reduce more noise corrupted images and to remove salt and pepper noise in a more effective way than what AMF filter does.

Partition-based vector filtering technique for suppression of noise in digital color images

Abstract: A partition-based adaptive vector filter is proposed for the restoration of corrupted digital color images. The novelty of the filter lies in its unique three-stage adaptive estimation. The local image structure is first estimated by a series of center-weighted reference filters. Then the distances between the observed central pixel and estimated references are utilized to classify the local inputs into one of preset structure partition cells. Finally, a weighted filtering operation, indexed by the partition cell, is applied to the estimated references in order to restore the central pixel value. The weighted filtering operation is optimized off-line for each partition cell to achieve the best tradeoff between noise suppression and structure preservation. Recursive filtering operation and recursive weight training are also investigated to further boost the restoration performance. The proposed filter has demonstrated satisfactory results in suppressing many distinct types of noise in natural color images. Noticeable performance gains are demonstrated over other prior-art methods in terms of standard objective measurements, the visual image quality and the computational complexity.

Characterization of noise in digital photographs for image processing

Abstract: Many conventional image processing algorithms such as noise filtering, sharpening and deblurring, assume a noise model of Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) with constant standard deviation throughout the image. However, this noise model does not hold for images captured from typical imaging devices such as digital cameras, scanners and camera-phones. The raw data from the image sensor goes through several image processing steps such as demosaicing, color correction, gamma correction and JPEG compression, and thus, the noise characteristics in the final JPEG image deviates significantly from the widely-used AWGN noise model. Thus, when the image processing algorithms are applied to the digital photographs, they may not provide optimal image quality after the image processing due to the inaccurate noise model. In this paper, we propose a noise model that better fits the images captured from typical imaging devices and describe a simple method to extract necessary parameters directly from the images without any prior knowledge of imaging pipeline algorithms implemented in the imaging devices. We show experimental results of the noise parameters extracted from the raw and processed digital images.

SVD Based Blind Video Watermarking Algorithm

Abstract: In this paper, a new blind video watermarking algorithm is proposed based on the Singular Value Decomposition. The watermarks can be detected without the original video or any other information of the original singular values. Experiments show that the algorithm bears desirable robustness on MPEG-2 compression, median filtering, small rescaling, and rotation, etc.

Texture Classification using Convolutional Neural Networks

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a convolutional neural network (CoNN) for texture classification. This network has the ability to perform feature extraction and classification within the same architecture, whilst preserving the two-dimensional spatial structure of the input image. Feature extraction is performed using shunting inhibitory neurons, whereas the final classification decision is performed using sigmoid neurons. Tested on images from the Brodatz texture database, the proposed network achieves similar or better classification performance as some of the most popular texture classification approaches, namely Gabor filters, wavelets, quadratic mirror filters (QMF) and co-occurrence matrix methods. Furthermore, The CoNN classifier outperforms these techniques when its output is postprocessed with median filtering.

Leveling aerogeophysical data using a moving differential median filter

Abstract: We describe a new technique that can be used to level data collected along regular and irregular line patterns with or without tie-line control. The technique incorporates a moving differential median filter to minimize line-level errors, to level survey-line data, and to microlevel data with no tie-line control. This overcomes the problem of standard leveling methods that lose their effectiveness with irregular flight patterns. To validate the method, we use it to level very-low-frequency (VLF) electromagnetic (EM) data from a helicopter survey where flight lines are parallel. Leveling is also performed on a set of vintage aeromagnetic data from the North Sea, gathered from nonparallel flight lines. Results show that the differential median filter leveling technique is superior to the standard leveling method because it results in fewer line errors and less distortion of high-wavenumber anomalies when processing irregular survey lines, making the method suitable for a wide variety of data sets.

Method and system for removing noise by using change in activity pattern

Abstract: A noise removal method and system using a change in activity pattern, in which it is recognized that noise components exist in different frequency bands and different filters for removing noise are stored according to each activity pattern, thereby optimally removing the noise components. A method of removing noise by using a change in an activity pattern includes: recognizing an activity pattern of the subject using an activity sensor; sensing a first bio signal corresponding to the activity pattern from the subject using an electric potential sensor; recognizing a noise generation pattern according to the activity pattern by analyzing a noise component for each section of the first bio signal; selecting filter information for each section according to the noise generation pattern; storing the filter information selected for each section in association with the activity pattern; and removing noise from a second bio signal sensed from the subject by applying the stored filter information.

Quadratic Weighted Median Filters for Edge Enhancement of Noisy Images

Abstract: Quadratic Volterra filters are effective in image sharpening applications. The linear combination of polynomial terms, however, yields poor performance in noisy environments. Weighted median (WM) filters, in contrast, are well known for their outlier suppression and detail preservation properties. The WM sample selection methodology is naturally extended to the quadratic sample case, yielding a filter structure referred to as quadratic weighted median (QWM) that exploits the higher order statistics of the observed samples while simultaneously being robust to outliers arising in the higher order statistics of environment noise. Through statistical analysis of higher order samples, it is shown that, although the parent Gaussian distribution is light tailed, the higher order terms exhibit heavy-tailed distributions. The optimal combination of terms contributing to a quadratic system, i.e., cross and square, is approached from a maximum likelihood perspective which yields the WM processing of these terms. The proposed QWM filter structure is analyzed through determination of the output variance and breakdown probability. The studies show that the QWM exhibits lower variance and breakdown probability indicating the robustness of the proposed structure. The performance of the QWM filter is tested on constant regions, edges and real images, and compared to its weighted-sum dual, the quadratic Volterra filter. The simulation results show that the proposed method simultaneously suppresses the noise and enhances image details. Compared with the quadratic Volterra sharpener, the QWM filter exhibits superior qualitative and quantitative performance in noisy image sharpening

Modified repeated median filters

Abstract: We discuss moving window techniques for fast extraction of a signal composed of monotonic trends and abrupt shifts from a noisy time series with irrelevant spikes. Running medians remove spikes and preserve shifts, but they deteriorate in trend periods. Modified trimmed mean filters use a robust scale estimate such as the median absolute deviation about the median (MAD) to select an adaptive amount of trimming. Application of robust regression, particularly of the repeated median, has been suggested for improving upon the median in trend periods. We combine these ideas and construct modified filters based on the repeated median offering better shift preservation. All these filters are compared w.r.t. fundamental analytical properties and in basic data situations. An algorithm for the update of the MAD running in time O(log n) for window width n is presented as well.

Weighted absolute difference based noise reduction method and apparatus

Abstract: The invention is a method and apparatus for reducing noise in an image. The method and apparatus involves calculating a plurality of directional operators, comparing the directional operators to a predetermined threshold, and applying a filter responsive to the comparing. The method and apparatus computes the directional operators by taking a weighted sum of the absolute differences between a target pixel and its surrounding pixels. The comparison signals to the method or apparatus the existence of a line or edge. If the method or apparatus detects no edge or line, the method applies a smoothing or averaging filter. If the method or apparatus detects an edge or line, the method applies a median filter in the direction with a minimum directional difference.