Contrast enhancement for cephalometric images using wavelet-based modified adaptive histogram equalization

Cephalometric images usually have low contrast. The existing techniques for automatic cephalometric analysis usually use histogram equalization for image enhancement. This technique has the advantage of being fully automatic and nonlinear. However, it suffers from spikes, excessive enhancement, and lack of brightness preservation. The proposed technique is an adaptive histogram equalization technique that uses wavelet based gradient histograms. This paper compares its performance with two traditional techniques, three histogram modification based techniques, and two wavelet based techniques. Forty digital and scanned cephalograms are used to conduct tests. In addition to visual histograms and intensity profiles, the proposed method is compared in terms of eight quantitative measures. The various measures are applied to analyze the results in terms of contrast enhancement (EME, CNR), brightness preservation (AMBE), edge conservation and enhancement (H, TEN), preservation of image structures and non-addition distortion (MSSIM, SVD-M). The proposed method gives good contrast enhancement, with better brightness preservation without losing edge information and with the minimum addition of distortions to the enhanced cephalometric images.     

基于直方图的图像增强及其MATLAB实现

图像增强是数字图像的预处理，对图像整体或局部特征能有效地改善。我们讨论了基于直方图的均衡化和规定化处理的图像增强技术基本原理，给出了相关推导公式和算法；同时，以一个灰度图像为例，用MATLAB语言实现了直方图均衡化和规定化增强处理，并给出了具体程序、实验结果图像及直方图。结果表明，直方图均衡化和规定化处理能有
有效改善灰度图像的对比度差和灰度动态范围。     

Image Contrast Enhancement by Constrained Local Histogram Equalization

Histogram equalization is a widely used image contrast enhancement method. While global histogram equalization enhances the contrast of the whole image, local histogram equalization can enhance many image details by taking different transformation of the same gray level at different places in the original image. However, the local histogram equalization process often results in unacceptable modification of the original image appearance. In this paper, a constrained local histogram equalization method is proposed to balance the conflicting requirements: enhancement of the image details and the maintenance of the overall image appearance. Our method uses the variational form of histogram equalization so that a constraint condition, which forces the local gray level transformations to change continuously in the spatial domain, can be introduced into the equalization process. Experimental results of different kinds of images show the effect of our method.     

A novel illumination-robust face recognition using statistical and non-statistical method

This paper proposes a novel illumination-robust face recognition technique that combines the statistical global illumination transformation and the non-statistical local face representation methods. When a new face image with arbitrary illumination is given, it is transformed into a number of face images exhibiting different illuminations using a statistical bilinear model-based indirect illumination transformation. Each illumination transformed image is then represented by a histogram sequence that concatenates the histograms of the non-statistical multi-resolution uniform local Gabor binary patterns (MULGBP) for all the local regions. This is facilitated by dividing the input image into several regular local regions, converting each local region using several Gabor filters, and converting each Gabor filtered region image into multi-resolution local binary patterns (MULBP). Finally, face recognition is performed by a simple histogram matching process. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed face recognition method is highly robust to illumination variation as exhibited in the real environment.     

一种非线性变换的双直方图红外图像增强方法

红外图像具有噪声大、对比度低等特点,红外图像增强是红外探测、识别和跟踪应用中的核心问题之一。在红外图像增强技术中,直方图均衡方法简单、有效,但存在细节信息损失较大的缺陷。提出一种对红外图像采用非线性变换分段直方图的增强方法,该方法对红外图像进行非线性变换,提高较暗区域的像素亮度,根据前背景区域特征将直方图分成两段,进行双直方图均衡化处理,对前景和背景分别进行图像的增强。经过实验验证,该算法能有效提高图像亮度,扩大目标区的灰度范围,增强前景图像的细节部分。     

基于雾天图像降质模型的优化去雾方法

目的 图像去雾是计算机视觉的重要研究方向,既获得高质量的去雾图像,又保证较低的时间复杂度一直是图像去雾面临的挑战,为此提出了一种基于雾天图像降质模型的优化去雾方法。方法 根据雾天图像降质模型,暗原色作为先验知识,对模型的两个物理量大气光值和透射率进行优化。传统优化算法中通常都是固定其一,优化另一个物理量,与传统方法不同,考虑到大气光和透射率的相关性,采用多元优化策略,将这两个物理量作为互相影响的整体,利用迭代算法进行优化。为保持去雾图像颜色真实、自然,基于对无雾图像的统计特性,多阈值融合的约束条件作为迭代停止的条件,控制优化去雾程度,复原高质量去雾图像。结果 本文方法与其他去雾方法相比,在视觉效果上,图像结构更加清晰,细节更加丰富,色彩更加真实。在客观数据方面,本文方法获得图像的彩色直方图与有雾图像的彩色直方图在形状上更相似,同时在Cones、Herzeliya、House、Dolls对比图像中,本文方法结果图像的信息熵值都比较高,分别为13.801 270、15.490 912、15.395 014、16.276 838,且时间复杂度较He方法（使用软抠图算法优化透射率）降低了3~5倍。结论 本文去雾方法利用迭代算法对大气光和透射率进行多元优化,同时采用多阈值融合约束条件控制优化去雾程度。本文方法在色彩保真度、细节恢复等方面都优于经典算法,同时获得了较好的客观评价数据。实验结果表明,本文方法能够达到主客观都满意的效果。     

车载红外夜视图像的小波-遗传图像增强算法

针对传统红外图像增强算法在视觉效果上不够理想的问题,提出了一种适用于车载红外夜视图像的图像增强方法。该方法利用红外夜视仪的非接触生成热图像的原理,建立了针对车载红外夜视图像的小波-遗传灰度图像增强方法,并将该方法与传统的直方图均衡化法和多尺度Retinex算法进行了对比。在红外夜视图像增强效果方面,该方法具有改善图像亮度均匀性、避免图像过分增强和抑制噪声的特点。实验表明,所提出的小波-遗传图像增强算法在车载红外夜视图像增强方面的处理效果较好。     

Contrast enhancement based on a novel homogeneity measurement

Contrast enhancement is a very important issue in image processing, pattern recognition and computer vision. These are mainly: (1) indirect method of contrast enhancement and (2) direct method of contrast enhancement. The indirect method is to modify the histogram, which is not efficient and effective, since it only stretches the global distribution of the intensity. The direct method is to define a measurement of the contrast and use it to enhance the contrast. In this paper, we propose a novel homogeneity measurement and utilize it to define and enhance the contrast. The proposed approach uses both the local and global information. We have experimented the proposed algorithm on a variety of images, and the results prove that the proposed method has better performance than the existing methods, no over-enhancement/under-enhancement and more robust.     

Retrieval of gamma corrected images

This paper presents a histogram based image retrieval system for environments where the images may be subject to gamma correction. The images are transformed into representations that are invariant under gamma correction. The differential invariant employed is a local feature implemented with derivatives of the Gaussian. The image retrieval is based on feature histograms computed from the invariant representations. The invariant provides a generic method to trade off derivatives for an unknown power law parameter.     

Robust image retrieval based on color histogram of local feature regions

Color histograms lack spatial information and are sensitive to intensity variation, color distortion and cropping. As a result, images with similar histograms may have totally different semantics. The region-based approaches are introduced to overcome the above limitations, but due to the inaccurate segmentation, these systems may partition an object into several regions that may have confused users in selecting the proper regions. In this paper, we present a robust image retrieval based on color histogram of local feature regions (LFR). Firstly, the steady image feature points are extracted by using multi-scale Harris-Laplace detector. Then, the significant local feature regions are ascertained adaptively according to the feature scale theory. Finally, the color histogram of local feature regions is constructed, and the similarity between color images is computed by using the color histogram of LFRs. Experimental results show that the proposed color image retrieval is more accurate and efficient in retrieving the user-interested images. Especially, it is robust to some classic transformations (additive noise, affine transformation including translation, rotation and scale effects, partial visibility, etc.).     

Multiresolution similarity search in image databases

Typically searching image collections is based on features of the images. In most cases the features are based on the color histogram of the images. Similarity search based on color histograms is very efficient, but the quality of the search results is often rather poor. One of the reasons is that histogram-based systems only support a specific form of global similarity using the whole histogram as one vector. But there is more information in a histogram than the distribution of colors. This paper has two contributions: (1) a new generalized similarity search method based on a wavelet transformation of the color histograms and (2) a new effectiveness measure for image similarity search. Our generalized similarity search method has been developed to allow the user to search for images with similarities on arbitrary detail levels of the color histogram. We show that our new approach is more general and more effective than previous approaches while retaining a competitive performance.     

Image contrast enhancement for preserving mean brightness without losing image features

Histogram equalization is a well-known and effective technique for improving the contrast of images. However, the traditional histogram equalization (HE) method usually results in extreme contrast enhancement, which causes an unnatural look and visual artifacts of the processed image. In this paper, we propose a novel histogram equalization method that is composed of an automatic histogram separation module and an intensity transformation module. First, the proposed histogram separation module is a combination of the proposed prompt multiple thresholding procedure and an optimum peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) calculation to separate the histogram in small-scale detail. As the final step of the proposed process, the use of the intensity transformation module can enhance the image with complete brightness preservation for each generated sub-histogram. Experimental results show that the proposed method not only retains the shape features of the original histogram but also enhances the contrast effectively.     

一种区域多直方图红外图像增强方法*

直方图均衡是一种简单有效的红外图像增强技术,但存在着细节信息损失较大的缺陷。为改进这一缺陷,使直方图均衡在增强图像对比度的同时不损失灰度级别,并能增强图像细节特征,提出一种基于区域的multi-HE红外图像增强方法。该方法通过聚类算法将图像分割成多目标区域,据此将直方图分割成多个子图,运用多直方图均衡化对图像进行处理,从而达到在不同目标范围内的图像增强。经过实验验证,该算法能有效地抑制背景区的过增强,扩大了目标区的灰度范围,增强细节部分。     

基于直方图修正的局部对比度增强算法

针对传统直方图均衡化算法经常导致过增强,噪声放大和局部对比度低等缺点,提出了基于直方图修正的局部对比度增强算法。首先,利用自适应部分子块重叠方法把图像划分成一系列的子块,子块的大小能根据图像局部特征自适应调整;然后,对每个子块采用基于直方图修正的对比度增强方法进行处理;最后,融合各重叠子块的处理结果得到最终的增强图像。实验结果表明,该算法具有噪声鲁棒性、可控制增强等级、可调节动态范围和局部对比度较强的优势,增强后的图像具有更自然的视觉效果。     

Comparing images using joint histograms

Color histograms are widely used for content-based image retrieval due to their efficiency and robustness. However, a color histogram only records an image's overall color composition, so images with very different appearances can have similar color histograms. This problem is especially critical in large image databases, where many images have similar color histograms. In this paper, we propose an alternative to color histograms called a joint histogram, which incorporates additional information without sacrificing the robustness of color histograms. We create a joint histogram by selecting a set of local pixel features and constructing a multidimensional histogram. Each entry in a joint histogram contains the number of pixels in the image that are described by a particular combination of feature values. We describe a number of different joint histograms, and evaluate their performance for image retrieval on a database with over 210,000 images. On our benchmarks, joint histograms outperform color histograms by an order of magnitude.     

Gaussian mixture modeling of histograms for contrast enhancement

The current major theme in contrast enhancement is to partition the input histogram into multiple sub-histograms before final equalization of each sub-histogram is performed. This paper presents a novel contrast enhancement method based on Gaussian mixture modeling of image histograms, which provides a sound theoretical underpinning of the partitioning process. Our method comprises five major steps. First, the number of Gaussian functions to be used in the model is determined using a cost function of input histogram partitioning. Then the parameters of a Gaussian mixture model are estimated to find the best fit to the input histogram under a threshold. A binary search strategy is then applied to find the intersection points between the Gaussian functions. The intersection points thus found are used to partition the input histogram into a new set of sub-histograms, on which the classical histogram equalization (HE) is performed. Finally, a brightness preservation operation is performed to adjust the histogram produced in the previous step into a final one. Based on three representative test images, the experimental results demonstrate the contrast enhancement advantage of the proposed method when compared to twelve state-of-the-art methods in the literature.     

Natural-based underwater image color enhancement through fusion of swarm-intelligence algorithm

Underwater imagery suffers from severe effects due to selective attenuation and scattering effects when light travels through water medium. Such damages limit the ability of vision tasks and reduce image quality. There are a lot of enhancement methods to improve the quality of underwater image. However, most of the methods produce distortion effects in the output images. The proposed natural-based underwater image color enhancement (NUCE) method consists of four steps. The first step introduces a new approach to neutralize underwater color cast. The inferior color channels are enhanced based on gain factors, which are calculated by considering the differences between the superior and inferior color channels. In the second step, the dual-intensity images fusion based on average of mean and median values is proposed to produce lower-stretched and upper-stretched histograms. The composition between these histograms improves the image contrast significantly. Next, the swarm-intelligence based mean equalization is proposed to improve the naturalness of the output image. Through the fusion of swarm intelligence algorithm, the mean values of inferior color channels are adjusted to be closed to the mean value of superior color channel. Lastly, the unsharp masking technique is applied to sharpen the overall image. Experiments on underwater images that are captured under various conditions indicate that the proposed NUCE method produces better output image quality, while significantly overcoming other state-of-the-art methods.     

医学图像增强与直方图处理

文章介绍了图像增强的相关知识,重点介绍了用直方图增强图像的方法。用直方图处理图像包括直方图均衡化和直方图规定化。直方图均衡化和直方图规定化能增强图像的对比度,使图像更清晰。直方图均衡化对局部细节的增强效果不显著,而直方图规定化则使关注的细节变得更清晰。所以直方图规定化法处理医学图像局部细节方面优于均衡化。     

直方图均衡技术综述

直方图均衡是一种简单而有效的图像增强技术,在医学图像处理、计算机视觉、遥感影像等领域都有重要作用,从均衡时选取的区域情况分为全局和局部直方图均衡方法;从均衡时选取的像素值域可以分为传统直方图均衡、双直方图均衡和递归分解的直方图均衡,甚至多直方图均衡;从均衡对象可以分为空域的直方图均衡和结合频域滤波的直方图均衡;从均衡图像的通道数可以分为灰度图像直方图均衡和彩色图像直方图均衡．本文对以上涉及的直方图均衡技术进行了较为系统的综述,对衡量直方图均衡效果的评价指标进行了说明,展望了直方图均衡技术进一步研究方向．     

基于多级直方图形状分割的图像对比度增强技术

针对现有图像增强算法中存在过度增强和欠增强、边缘光晕效应、由于细节增强导致信噪比降低等问题,提出一种基于多级直方图形状分割的图像对比度增强技术。利用引导图像过滤器将图像背景和细节分离,避免边缘过度增强带来的光晕效应;利用多级直方图形状分割方法,将直方图中出现频率相近的强度值区域分割出来,实现图像背景的个体均衡化;采用自适应细节增强方法在增强细节的同时抑制均匀区域中噪声,保持图像的信噪比。实验结果表明,与其他算法相比,该增强方法的效果更优,能够有效避免图像增强中常见的不利问题,同时产生足够的整体增强效果。