A universal denoising framework with a new impulse detector and nonlocal means

Impulse noise detection is a critical issue when removing impulse noise and impulse/Gaussian mixed noise. In this paper, we propose a new detection mechanism for universal noise and a universal noise-filtering framework based on the nonlocal means (NL-means). The operation is carried out in two stages, i.e., detection followed by filtering. For detection, first, we propose the robust outlyingness ratio (ROR) for measuring how impulselike each pixel is, and then all the pixels are divided into four clusters according to the ROR values. Second, different decision rules are used to detect the impulse noise based on the absolute deviation to the median in each cluster. In order to make the detection results more accurate and more robust, the from-coarse-to-fine strategy and the iterative framework are used. In addition, the detection procedure consists of two stages, i.e., the coarse and fine detection stages. For filtering, the NL-means are extended to the impulse noise by introducing a reference image. Then, a universal denoising framework is proposed by combining the new detection mechanism with the NL-means (ROR-NLM). Finally, extensive simulation results show that the proposed noise detector is superior to most existing detectors, and the ROR-NLM produces excellent results and outperforms most existing filters for different noise models. Unlike most of the other impulse noise filters, the proposed ROR-NLM also achieves high peak signal-to-noise ratio and great image quality by efficiently removing impulse/Gaussian mixed noise.     

A new filter for the removal of random-valued impulse noise from highly corrupted images

In this paper, we present a new two-stage filter for the removal of random-valued impulse noise. The new filter identifies noise candidates by analyzing the amount of similar pixels in intensity value, and then reconstructs them by the total variation inpainting method. The experimental results are reported which show the efficiency of our method in removing random-valued impulse noise. Further, our filter can be used for image restoration from images damaged by the superimposed artifacts.     

A two-stage shearlet-based approach for the removal of random-valued impulse noise in images

In this paper, we introduce a novel two-stage denoising method for the removal of random-valued impulse noise (RVIN) in images. The first stage of our algorithm applies an impulse-noise detection routine that is a refinement of the HEIND algorithm and is very accurate in identifying the location of the noisy pixels. The second stage is an image inpainting routine that is designed to restore the missing information at those pixels that have been identified during the first stage. One of the novelties of our approach is that our inpainting routine takes advantage of the shearlet representation to efficiently recover the geometry of the original image. This method is particularly effective to eliminate jagged edges and other visual artifacts that frequently affect many RVIN denoising algorithms, especially at higher noise levels. We present extensive numerical demonstrations to show that our approach is very effective to remove random-valued impulse noise without any significant loss of fine-scale detail. Our algorithm compares very favourably against state-of-the-art methods in terms of both visual quality and quantitative measurements.     

一种非开关型快速随机脉冲噪声降噪算法

为提高现有开关型随机脉冲噪声（Random-Valued Impulse Noise,RVIN）降噪算法的降噪性能,提出了一种基于卷积神经网络的非开关型RVIN快速降噪算法（Fast Non-switching RVIN Denoising Algorithm,FNRDA）.首先,利用噪声检测器随机地检测给定噪声图像中少量不同位置处的像素点;然后,将检测为RVIN噪声点的个数除以被检像素点总数转化为噪声比例值;最后,根据噪声比例值调用相应预先训练好的非开关型卷积神经网络降噪模型,快速且高质量地完成图像降噪任务.实验结果表明：所提出的非开关型FNRDA算法在各噪声比例下的综合性能（降噪效果和执行效率）优于经典的开关型RVIN降噪算法,适用于图像恢复、信号检测、无线通讯等实时系统中.     

Similar neighbor criterion for impulse noise removal in images

In this paper, a new method is proposed for removing and restoring random-valued impulse noise in images. This approach is based on a similar neighbor criterion, in which any pixel to be considered as an original pixel it should have sufficient numbers of similar neighboring pixels in a set of filtering windows. Compared with other well known methods in the literature, this technique achieves superior performance in restoring heavily corrupted noisy images. Furthermore, it has low computational complexity, and equally effective in restoring corrupted color and gray-level images.     

脉冲噪声图像的中-均值滤波算法

由于在图像信息的获取和传输过程中,图像常常受到不同程度的脉冲噪声污染。为了有效地去除高浓度脉冲噪声,提出了一种基于中－均值滤波器的噪声去除算法。该方法根据脉冲噪声特点,设定一个简单的噪声检测算子,根据噪声检测结果设定自适应滤波窗口,同时根据噪声密度选择中值和均值滤波器。为了更加有效地保留图像的原有信息,对非噪声点不做滤波处理。仿真结果表明,所提出的中－均值滤波方法不仅能有效地去除高浓度的脉冲噪声,而且能很好地保留图像的原有信息,并具有较短的滤波处理时间。     

A new method to remove random-valued impulse noise in images

This paper presents a new method for detecting random-valued impulse noise (RVIN) in images. The proposed method is based on similar valued neighbor criterion and the detection of the noisy pixels are realized in maximum four phases. After the corrupted pixels detected in each phase, the median filtering is performed for only these pixels. As such, corrupted pixels are suppressed gradually at the end of the each phase. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on different test images and compared with ten different comparison filters from the literature. It is shown from simulation results that proposed method provides a significant improvement over comparison filters.     

An effective 2-stage method for removing impulse noise in images

In this paper, a robust 2-stage impulse noise removal system is proposed to remove impulse noise from extremely corrupted images. The contributions are in two-fold. First, a neuro-fuzzy based impulse noise detector (NFIDET) is introduced to identify the noisy pixels. NFIDET is a powerful noise detector that can handle image corruption even up to 90% with zero miss and false detection rate with a simple neuro-fuzzy structure. This is the best result among the other impulse noise detectors in the literature. Second, this paper presents a new approach for weight calculation of adaptive weighted mean filter by using robust statistical model. An adaptive robust weighted mean (ARWM) filter removes a detected noisy pixel by adaptively determining filtering window size and replacing a noisy pixel with the weighted mean of the noise-free pixels in its window. A Geman–McClure robust estimation function is used to estimate the weights of the pixels. Simulation results also show that the proposed robust filter substantially outperforms many other existing algorithms in terms of image restoration.     

A detection statistic for random-valued impulse noise.

This paper proposes an image statistic for detecting random-valued impulse noise. By this statistic, we can identify most of the noisy pixels in the corrupted images. Combining it with an edge-preserving regularization, we obtain a powerful two-stage method for denoising random-valued impulse noise, even for noise levels as high as 60%. Simulation results show that our method is significantly better than a number of existing techniques in terms of image restoration and noise detection.     

基于差分法的噪声检测和变分法的图像滤波算法

针对图像的椒盐噪声滤除算法中,在噪声检测阶段对噪声点的检测通常不够准确,在噪声恢复阶段,又缺乏对边缘信息的保护,文中提出了一种两步复原法,以用于复原被脉冲噪声破坏的模糊图像。算法将滤噪过程分为噪声检测和噪声恢复阶段。噪声检测过程中,在滑动窗口扩大当前的像素值和其他像素值之间的有序差异,来确定当前像素是否为噪声像素。而在噪声恢复过程中利用变分法,确保图像的边缘和细节。实验结果表明,文中所提检测、降噪方法在噪声密度较高的情况下,优于其他算法。     

Erratum to: Multi-scale directional-filtering-based method for follicular lymphoma grading

A new decision-based algorithm has been proposed for the restoration of digital images which are highly contaminated by the saturated impulse noise (i.e., salt-and-pepper noise). The proposed denoising algorithm performs filtering operation only to the corrupted pixels in the image, keeping uncorrupted pixels intact. The present study has used a coupled window scheme for the removal of high density noise. It has used sliding window of increasing dimension, centered at any pixel and replaced the noisy pixels consecutively by the median value of the window. However, if the entire pixels in the window are noisy, then the dimension of sliding window is increased in order to obtain the noise-free pixels for median calculation. Consequently, this algorithm has been found to be able to remove the high density salt-and-pepper noise and also preserved the fine details of the four images, Lena, Elaine, Rhythm, and Sunny, used as test images in this study (The latter two real-life images have been acquired using Sony: Steady Shot DSC- S3000). Experimentally, it has been found that the proposed algorithm yields better peak signal-to-noise ratio, image enhancement factor, structural similarity index measure and image quality index, compared with the other state-of-art median-based filters viz. standard median filter, adaptive median filter, progressive switched median filter, modified decision-based algorithm and modified decision-based unsymmetric trimmed median filter.     

Edge-Preserving Regularized Filter with Spatial Local Outlier Measure and Q-Estimate

This paper presents an efficient random-valued impulse noise removal algorithm. The filtering process contains two phases: a detection phase followed by a filtering phase. In the detection phase, the proposed method uses the novel image statistics, the spatial local outlier measure (SLOM) and the Q-estimate, to identify impulses in a corrupted image. When the noise pixels are identified, their values are restored by an edge-preserving regularized method in the filtering phase. Extensive experimental results show that our filter provides a significant improvement over many other existing techniques.     

Universal impulse noise filter based on genetic programming.

In this paper, we present a novel method for impulse noise filter construction, based on the switching scheme with two cascaded detectors and two corresponding estimators. Genetic programming as a supervised learning algorithm is employed for building two detectors with complementary characteristics. The first detector identifies the majority of noisy pixels. The second detector searches for the remaining noise missed by the first detector, usually hidden in image details or with amplitudes close to its local neighborhood. Both detectors are based on the robust estimators of location and scale-median and MAD. The filter made by the proposed method is capable of effectively suppressing all kinds of impulse noise, in contrast to many existing filters which are specialized only for a particular noise model. In addition, we propose the usage of a new impulse noise model-the mixed impulse noise, which is more realistic and harder to treat than existing impulse noise models. The proposed model is the combination of commonly used noise models: salt-and-pepper and uniform impulse noise models. Simulation results show that the proposed two-stage GP filter produces excellent results and outperforms existing state-of-the-art filters.     

Predictive-based adaptive switching median filter for impulse noise removal using neural network-based noise detector

A predictive-based adaptive switching median filter for impulse noise removal using neural network-based noise detector (PASMF) is presented. The PASMF has a noise detector stage and a noise filtering stage. The noise detector implemented using feed forward neural network detects impulse noises in the corrupted image. The filter is a modified median filter, which removes detected impulse noise from the image. In contrast to the standard median filter, the PASMF computes the median value after predicting the appropriate values for neighboring corrupted pixels of the current central pixel in the filtering window. The results show that the PASMF gives better performance visually as well as in terms of different performance measures.     

A new efficient approach for the removal of impulse noise fromhighly corrupted images

A new framework for removing impulse noise from images is presented in which the nature of the filtering operation is conditioned on a state variable defined as the output of a classifier that operates on the differences between the input pixel and the remaining rank-ordered pixels in a sliding window. As part of this framework, several algorithms are examined, each of which is applicable to fixed and random-valued impulse noise models. First, a simple two-state approach is described in which the algorithm switches between the output of an identity filter and a rank-ordered mean (ROM) filter. The technique achieves an excellent tradeoff between noise suppression and detail preservation with little increase in computational complexity over the simple median filter. For a small additional cost in memory, this simple strategy is easily generalized into a multistate approach using weighted combinations of the identity and ROM filter in which the weighting coefficients can be optimized using image training data. Extensive simulations indicate that these methods perform significantly better in terms of noise suppression and detail preservation than a number of existing nonlinear techniques with as much as 40% impulse noise corruption. Moreover, the method can effectively restore images corrupted with Gaussian noise and mixed Gaussian and impulse noise. Finally, the method is shown to be extremely robust with respect to the training data and the percentage of impulse noise.     

Salt-and-Pepper noise removal by median-type noise detectors and detail-preserving regularization.

This paper proposes a two-phase scheme for removing salt-and-pepper impulse noise. In the first phase, an adaptive median filter is used to identify pixels which are likely to be contaminated by noise (noise candidates). In the second phase, the image is restored using a specialized regularization method that applies only to those selected noise candidates. In terms of edge preservation and noise suppression, our restored images show a significant improvement compared to those restored by using just nonlinear filters or regularization methods only. Our scheme can remove salt-and-pepper-noise with a noise level as high as 90%.     

基于相关度量的高椒盐噪声软阈值直方图滤波算法

利用图像邻域相关和直方图对椒盐噪声的鲁棒性,提出了一种针对高椒盐噪声图像的软阈值直方图加权滤波算法.对邻域灰度相关进行了量化分析,定义了灰度相关函数作为信号邻域相关性的度量,并将该系数作为直方图加权滤波算法的软阈值,根据像素被判定为噪声或有效信号的概率,自行调整滤波强度,减少图像滤波处理中的细节损失.仿真结果表明,对于高椒盐噪声图像,本算法在椒盐噪声滤除方面有良好的表现.     

Monochromatic-Based Method for Impulse Noise Detection and Suppression in Color Images

A new method to detect and reduce the impulse noise in color images is presented in this paper. The method consists of two stages: detection and filtering. Since each of the individual channels (components) of the color image can be considered as a monochrome image, both stages are applied to each channel separately, and then the individual results are combined into one output image. The corrupted pixels are detected in the first stage based on a proposed innovative switching technique. The noise-free pixels are copied to their corresponding locations in the output image. In the second stage, average filtering is applied only to those pixels which are determined to be noisy in the first stage, and only noise-free pixel values are involved in calculating this average. The size of the sliding window depends on the estimated noise density and is very small even for high noise densities. The proposed method is effective in noise reduction while preserving edge details and color chromaticity. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms all the tested existing state-of-the-art methods used in digital color image restoration in both standard objective measurements and perceived image quality.     

基于高概率椒盐噪声的模糊滤波器在图像恢复中的算法设计

高概率椒盐噪声对数字图像的重度污染大量存在,如要消除信息少且噪点集中的噪声存在诸多困难;而低概率椒盐噪声对数字图像的轻度污染虽然可完全滤除,但在实际图像恢复中又缺少普遍意义.本文基于灰度值空间的模糊划分和描述灰度水平的模糊数,采用极值法对高概率噪声实施检测并建立恰当滤波窗口,应用广义重心去模糊化法和非噪声点对应的隶属函数设计一种新模糊滤波器.最后,通过仿真实例获得该滤波器可有效地过滤数字图像中高概率椒盐噪声,并说明它的去噪性能优于其他常见滤波器.     

Difference-type noise detector for adaptive median filter

Noise detection-based median filters have been widely applied to impulse noise reduction. However, the number of pixels misclassified is obviously increased in high noise density. To overcome such drawback, a difference-type noise detector is proposed. In image filtering, a noise detection-based adaptive median algorithm is presented. Experimental results show that the proposed filter can well remove the impulse noise and preserve more details of original images.