Adaptive resampling algorithm for image zooming

Applying an interpolation function indiscriminately to an image, to resample it, will generally result in aliasing, edge blurring and other artefacts. The authors present an adaptive resampling algorithm for zooming up images. The algorithm is based on analysing the local structure of the image and applying a near optimal and least time-consuming resampling function will preserve edge locations and their contrast. This is done by segmenting the image dynamically into homogeneous areas, as it is scanned or received. Based on the location of the pixel to be computed (whether it is within a homogenous area, is on its edge or is an isolated feature), interpolation, extrapolation or pixel replication is chosen. The algorithm performance, from both a quality and a computational complexity aspect, are compared to different methods and functions previously reported in the literature. The advantage of the algorithm is quite apparent at edges and for large zooming factors     

Fuzzy-adapted linear interpolation algorithm for image zooming

This work presents a novel fuzzy linear interpolation algorithm with application in image zooming. Fuzzy logics are employed to derive suitable weights for the neighboring samples in the interpolation formulae. By considering local gradients to calculate the weights, the accuracy of the interpolated value is improved. Additionally, a modification of the proposed algorithm based on the interpolation error theorem is developed to deal with images containing ridges and valleys. Both quantitative results obtained by measuring the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and perceptual observations assessed the superior performance of the proposed algorithm and its modified version with respect to the state-of-the-art interpolation methods.     

The error-amended sharp edge (EASE) scheme for image zooming.

This paper proposes a new interpolation method, called the error-amended sharp edge (EASE) scheme, which is a modified bilinear method. In order to remove/reduce interpolation artifacts such as image blur and the checkerboard effect (ringing), EASE tries to amend the interpolation error by employing the classical interpolation error theorem in an edge-adaptive fashion. EASE is applied for image zooming by both integer and noninteger magnification factors. The new interpolation scheme has proved to result in high-resolution images having clearer and sharper edges than linear interpolation methods, for all synthetic and natural images we have tested. EASE can be implemented with ease; it turns out to be similarly efficient as cubic interpolation schemes.     

A fully automatic one-scan adaptive zooming algorithm for color images

We present an interpolation algorithm for adaptive color image zooming. The algorithm produces the magnified image in one scan of the input image, and is fully automatic since does not involve any a priori fixed threshold. Given any integer zooming factor n, each pixel of the input image generates an n×n block of pixels in the zoomed image. For the currently visited pixel of the input image, the pixels of its associated block are first assigned tentative values, which are then adaptively updated before building the next block. The method is suggested for RGB images, but can equally be employed in other color spaces. Peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and Structural SIMilarity (SSIM) are used to evaluate the performance of the algorithm.     

Comparison and optimization of methods of color image quantization

Color image quantization, the process of reducing the number of colors in a digital color image, has been widely studied for the last fifteen years. The different steps of clustering methods are studied. The methods are compared step by step and some optimizations of the algorithms and data structures are given. A new color space called H1H2H3 is introduced, which improves the quantization heuristics. A low-cost quantization scheme is proposed.     

An optimal fuzzy system for color image enhancement.

A Gaussian membership function is proposed to fuzzify the image information in spatial domain. We introduce a global contrast intensification operator (GINT), which contains three parameters, viz., intensification parameter t, fuzzifier fh, and the crossover point mu(c), for enhancement of color images. We define fuzzy contrast-based quality factor Qf and entropy-based quality factor Qe and the corresponding visual factors for the desired appearance of images. By minimizing the fuzzy entropy of the image information with respect to these quality factors, the parameters t, fh, and mu(c) are calculated globally. By using the proposed technique, a visible improvement in the image quality is observed for under exposed images, as the entropy of the output image is decreased. The terminating criterion is decided by both the visual and quality factors. For over exposed and under plus over exposed images, the proposed fuzzification function needs to be modified by taking maximum intensity as the fourth parameter. The type of the images is indicated by the visual factor which is less than 1 for under exposed images and more than 1 for over exposed images.     

Active learning methods for interactive image retrieval.

Active learning methods have been considered with increased interest in the statistical learning community. Initially developed within a classification framework, a lot of extensions are now being proposed to handle multimedia applications. This paper provides algorithms within a statistical framework to extend active learning for online content-based image retrieval (CBIR). The classification framework is presented with experiments to compare several powerful classification techniques in this information retrieval context. Focusing on interactive methods, active learning strategy is then described. The limitations of this approach for CBIR are emphasized before presenting our new active selection process RETIN. First, as any active method is sensitive to the boundary estimation between classes, the RETIN strategy carries out a boundary correction to make the retrieval process more robust. Second, the criterion of generalization error to optimize the active learning selection is modified to better represent the CBIR objective of database ranking. Third, a batch processing of images is proposed. Our strategy leads to a fast and efficient active learning scheme to retrieve sets of online images (query concept). Experiments on large databases show that the RETIN method performs well in comparison to several other active strategies.     

A robust structure-adaptive hybrid vector filter for color image restoration.

A robust structure-adaptive hybrid vector filter is proposed for digital color image restoration in this paper. At each pixel location, the image vector (i.e., pixel) is first classified into several different signal activity categories by applying a modified quadtree decomposition to luminance component (image) of the input color image. A weight-adaptive vector filtering operation with an optimal window is then activated to achieve the best tradeoff between noise suppression and detail preservation. Through extensive simulation experiments conducted using a wide range of test color images, the filter has demonstrated superior performance to that of a number of well known benchmark techniques, in terms of both standard objective measurements and perceived image quality, in suppressing several distinct types of noise commonly considered in color image restoration, including Gaussian noise, impulse noise, and mixed noise.     

Example-based color transformation of image and video using basic color categories.

Color transformation is the most effective method to improve the mood of an image, because color has a large influence in forming the mood. However, conventional color transformation tools have a tradeoff between the quality of the resultant image and the amount of manual operation. To achieve a more detailed and natural result with less labor, we previously suggested a method that performs an example-based color stylization of images using perceptual color categories. In this paper, we extend this method to make the algorithm more robust and to stylize the colors of video frame sequences. We present a variety of results, arguing that these images and videos convey a different, but coherent mood.     

基于协方差描述子的彩色图像分割算法

为克服模糊C均值聚类图像分割对噪声较为敏感的缺陷,提出了一种结合协方差描述子的模糊C均值聚类算法。采用协方差描述子的滤波能力以改善传统模糊C均值聚类算法对噪声敏感的缺陷;提取超像素的协方差矩阵作为特征,降低图像识别的特征冗余。并做了仿真实验,对提出的算法与三个图像分割算法进行比较,结果表明该图像分割算法具有较好的噪声鲁棒性和分割准确率。     

彩色立体像对的自适应匹配

提出了一种自适应权值的色彩相似性度量方法,有效地抑制了噪声对立体匹配的影响,提出以立体像对左、右图像间的颜色直方图相关系数为标准来调整权值的方法,并通过实验推导出具体的计算公式.对以灰度变化为基准的自适应窗选择方法进行改进,在边界提取过程中加入了彩色信息,使得提取的物体轮廓更为完整;用"米"字型窗口来代替原来的矩形窗口也使得窗口增长更为灵活,获得的匹配更为准确.实验结果表明,本文算法能够生成精确度较高的视差图,是一种较好的立体匹配算法.     

基于三角网格上Coons曲面的图像缩放算法

针对传统插值算法在图像整体缩放中边缘区域易产生锯齿或模糊的现象,提出一种新型的图像缩放算法．将相邻像素形成的矩形区域进行三角剖分,根据待构造曲线段的位置关系及插值控制点的距离大小构造辅助的控制顶点,再利用相应的Bézier曲线插值图像构造的辅助控制点,最后以产生的Bézier曲线作为边界曲线,利用Coons曲面构造方法构造出退化的三角形曲面片进行边缘细节的强化。提出的方法可以很好地保持图像边缘细节,尤其在倾斜的边缘和尖角等处保持了更多的细节特征,使放大的图像有更好的效果。     

基于颜色直方图的图像检索技术

讨论了基于颜色直方图的图像检索中颜色空间和直方图距离的选择问题,提出了利用颜色直方图来检索图像的一般框架,建立了基于两种颜色空间(RGB和HSV)和四种直方图距离共八种图像检索算法,并且采用了两种客观评价标准对所建立算法的有效性进行评价。结果证明,在基于颜色直方图的应用中,HSV空间比RGB空间更有效,EMD距离在所有四种距离量度中性能较好,但计算量稍大,与EMD距离相比,虽交集距离性能稍有不足,但所需计算量较小。     

Frequency layered color indexing for content-based image retrieval

Image patches of different spatial frequencies are likely to have different perceptual significance as well as reflect different physical properties. Incorporating such concept is helpful to the development of more effective image retrieval techniques. We introduce a method which separates an image into layers, each of which retains only pixels in areas with similar spatial frequency characteristics and uses simple low-level features to index the layers individually. The scheme associates indexing features with perceptual and physical significance thus implicitly incorporating high level knowledge into low level features. We present a computationally efficient implementation of the method, which enhances the power and at the same time retains the simplicity and elegance of basic color indexing. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.     

Context-aware joint dictionary learning for color image demosaicking

Most digital cameras are overlaid with color filter arrays (CFA) on their electronic sensors, and thus only one particular color value would be captured at every pixel location. When producing the output image, one needs to recover the full color image from such incomplete color samples, and this process is known as demosaicking. In this paper, we propose a novel context-constrained demosaicking algorithm via sparse-representation based joint dictionary learning. Given a single mosaicked image with incomplete color samples, we perform color and texture constrained image segmentation and learn a dictionary with different context categories. A joint sparse representation is employed on different image components for predicting the missing color information in the resulting high-resolution image. During the dictionary learning and sparse coding processes, we advocate a locality constraint in our algorithm, which allows us to locate most relevant image data and thus achieve improved demosaicking performance. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms several existing or state-of-the-art techniques in terms of both subjective and objective evaluations.     

Efficient edge-preserving algorithm for color contrast enhancement with application to color image segmentation

In this paper, a new and efficient edge-preserving algorithm is presented for color contrast enhancement in CIE Lu^′v^′ color space. The proposed algorithm not only can enhance the color contrast as the previous algorithm does, but also has an edge-preservation effect. In addition, the spurious edge points occurred due to the color contrast enhancement can be well reduced using the proposed algorithm. This is the first edge-preserving algorithm for color contrast enhancement in color space. Furthermore, a novel color image segmentation algorithm is presented to justify the edge-preservation benefit of the proposed color contrast enhancement algorithm. Based on some real images, experimental results demonstrate the advantages of color contrast enhancement, edge-preservation effect, and segmentation result in our proposed algorithm.     

Kernel-based methods for hyperspectral image classification

This paper presents the framework of kernel-based methods in the context of hyperspectral image classification, illustrating from a general viewpoint the main characteristics of different kernel-based approaches and analyzing their properties in the hyperspectral domain. In particular, we assess performance of regularized radial basis function neural networks (Reg-RBFNN), standard support vector machines (SVMs), kernel Fisher discriminant (KFD) analysis, and regularized AdaBoost (Reg-AB). The novelty of this work consists in: 1) introducing Reg-RBFNN and Reg-AB for hyperspectral image classification; 2) comparing kernel-based methods by taking into account the peculiarities of hyperspectral images; and 3) clarifying their theoretical relationships. To these purposes, we focus on the accuracy of methods when working in noisy environments, high input dimension, and limited training sets. In addition, some other important issues are discussed, such as the sparsity of the solutions, the computational burden, and the capability of the methods to provide outputs that can be directly interpreted as probabilities.     

Continuous digital zooming of asymmetric dual camera images using registration and variational image restoration

This paper presents a theoretical basis to realize a high-quality digital zooming using two camera modules with different focal lengths. First, we describe an image degradation model of the asymmetric dual camera system to analyze the characteristic of the wide- and tele-view images. In an asymmetric dual camera system, we assume that the shorter focal length module produces the wide-view image with the low-resolution. On the other hand, the longer focal length module produces the tele-view image by an optical zooming. To reconstruct a wide-view image of a continuous digital zooming, the proposed method first estimates the point spread function (PSF) between the wide- and tele-view images. Next, the proposed method performs variational-based image restoration using the estimated PSF. In addition, since the tele-view image inserted into appropriate region of the wide-view image, the proposed method can provide significantly improved wide-view image.