A Retinex-based total variation approach for image segmentation and bias correction

Image segmentation methods usually suffer from intensity inhomogeneity problem caused by many factors such as spatial variations in illumination (or bias fields of imaging devices). In order to address this problem, this paper proposes a Retinex-based variational model for image segmentation and bias correction. According to Retinex theory, the input inhomogeneous image can be decoupled into illumination bias and reflectance parts. The main contribution of this paper is to consider piecewise constant of the reflectance, and thereby introduce the total variation term in the proposed model for correcting and segmenting the input image. This is different from the existing model in which the spatial smoothness of the illumination bias is employed only. The existence of the minimizers to the variational model is established. Furthermore, we develop an efficient algorithm to solve the model numerically by using the alternating minimization method. Our experimental results are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, and its performance is competitive with that of the other testing methods.     

Shape and topology optimization for elliptic boundary value problems using a piecewise constant level set method

The aim of this paper is to propose a variational piecewise constant level set method for solving elliptic shape and topology optimization problems. The original model is approximated by a two-phase optimal shape design problem by the ersatz material approach. Under the piecewise constant level set framework, we first reformulate the two-phase design problem to be a new constrained optimization problem with respect to the piecewise constant level set function. Then we solve it by the projection Lagrangian method. A gradient-type iterative algorithm is presented. Comparisons between our numerical results and those obtained by level set approaches show the effectiveness, accuracy and efficiency of our algorithm.     

A variational formulation for physical noised image segmentation

Image segmentation is a hot topic in image science. In this paper we present a new variational segmentation model based on the theory of Mumford-Shah model. The aim of our model is to divide noised image, according to a certain criterion, into homogeneous and smooth regions that should correspond to structural units in the scene or objects of interest. The proposed region-based model uses total variation as a regularization term, and different fidelity term can be used for image segmentation in the cases of physical noise, such as Gaussian, Poisson and multiplicative speckle noise. Our model consists of five weighted terms, two of them are responsible for image denoising based on fidelity term and total variation term, the others assure that the three conditions of adherence to the data, smoothing, and discontinuity detection are met at once. We also develop a primal-dual hybrid gradient algorithm for our model. Numerical results on various synthetic and real images are provided to compare our method with others,these results show that our proposed model and algorithms are effective.     

A convergent overlapping domain decomposition method for total variation minimization

In this paper we are concerned with the analysis of convergent sequential and parallel overlapping domain decomposition methods for the minimization of functionals formed by a discrepancy term with respect to the data and a total variation constraint. To our knowledge, this is the first successful attempt of addressing such a strategy for the nonlinear, nonadditive, and nonsmooth problem of total variation minimization. We provide several numerical experiments, showing the successful application of the algorithm for the restoration of 1D signals and 2D images in interpolation/inpainting problems, respectively, and in a compressed sensing problem, for recovering piecewise constant medical-type images from partial Fourier ensembles.     

基于分段常值水平集的抛物型方程的参数识别算法

研究了线性抛物型方程不连续参数的识别算法.根据原有算法对于加噪观测数据计算不收敛的问题,本文基于分段常值水平集方法,根据水平集函数和优化过程的特点,修正原有Uzawa型算法中的带有总变差(TV)正则化的极小化模型和对常值向量的极小化模型,并且利用分裂Bregman迭代算法处理TV范数的优越性,构造一种新的参数识别算法格式.数值实验结果显示,新算法具有计算时间短、精度高、抗噪性强的优点.     

求解分段常数图象分割模型的一个快速算法

针对Xue-ChengTai等提出的分段常数图象分割模型,我们提出了一个新的快速求解算法。通过引进一个函数来选择模型中的正则化参数β的值,并判断在迭代过程中何时求解不含惩罚项的泛函F。此函数的引入有效地加速了算法的收敛速度。结合原始-对偶Newton方法来求解总变差最小化问题。数值试验表明新算法具有很快的收敛速度与良好的分割效果,且算法对初始值的要求不高。     

A new piecewise quadratic approximation approach for L0 norm minimization problem

In this paper, we consider the problem of finding sparse solutions for underdetermined systems of linear equations, which can be formulated as a class of L_0 norm minimization problem. By using the least absolute residual approximation, we propose a new piecewis, quadratic function to approximate the L_0 norm.Then, we develop a piecewise quadratic approximation(PQA) model where the objective function is given by the summation of a smooth non-convex component and a non-smooth convex component. To solve the(PQA) model,we present an algorithm based on the idea of the iterative thresholding algorithm and derive the convergence and the convergence rate. Finally, we carry out a series of numerical experiments to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm for(PQA). We also conduct a phase diagram analysis to further show the superiority of(PQA) over L_1 and L_(1/2) regularizations.     

IMAGE RESTORATION UNDER CAUCHY NOISE WITH SPARSE REPRESENTATION PRIOR AND TOTAL GENERALIZED VARIATION

This article introduces a novel variational model for restoring images degraded by Cauchy noise and/or blurring.The model integrates a nonconvex data-fidelity term with two regularization terms,a sparse representation prior over dictionary learning and total generalized variation(TGV)regularization.The sparse representation prior exploiting patch information enables the preservation of fine features and textural patterns,while adequately denoising in homogeneous regions and contributing natural visual quality.TGV regularization further assists in effectively denoising in smooth regions while retaining edges.By adopting the penalty method and an alternating minimization approach,we present an efficient iterative algorithm to solve the proposed model.Numerical results establish the superiority of the proposed model over other existing models in regard to visual quality and certain image quality assessments.     

Speckle noise removal in ultrasound images by first- and second-order total variation

Speckle noise contamination is a common issue in ultrasound imaging system. Due to the edge-preserving feature, total variation (TV) regularization-based techniques have been extensively utilized for speckle noise removal. However, TV regularization sometimes causes staircase artifacts as it favors solutions that are piecewise constant. In this paper, we propose a new model to overcome this deficiency. In this model, the regularization term is represented by a combination of total variation and high-order total variation, while the data fidelity term is depicted by a generalized Kullback-Leibler divergence. The proposed model can be efficiently solved by alternating direction method with multipliers (ADMM). Compared with some state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method achieves higher quality in terms of the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and the structural similarity index (SSIM). Numerical experiments demonstrate that our method can remove speckle noise efficiently while suppress staircase effects on both synthetic images and real ultrasound images.     

Theoretical and numerical investigation of the D-gap function for box constrained variational inequalities

The D-gap function, recently introduced by Peng and further studied by Yamashita et al., allows a smooth unconstrained minimization reformulation of the general variational inequality problem. This paper is concerned with the D-gap function for variational inequality problems over a box or, equivalently, mixed complementarity problems. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First we investigate theoretical properties in depth of the D-gap function, such as the optimality of stationary points, bounded level sets, global error bounds and generalized Hessians. Next we present a nonsmooth Gauss-Newton type algorithm for minimizing the D-gap function, and report extensive numerical results for the whole set of problems in the MCPLIB test problem collection. The work of this author was supported in part by the Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture, Japan.     

An edge driven wavelet frame model for image restoration

Wavelet frame systems are known to be effective in capturing singularities from noisy and degraded images. In this paper, we introduce a new edge driven wavelet frame model for image restoration by approximating images as piecewise smooth functions. With an implicit representation of image singularities sets, the proposed model inflicts different strength of regularization on smooth and singular image regions and edges. The proposed edge driven model is robust to both image approximation and singularity estimation. The implicit formulation also enables an asymptotic analysis of the proposed models and a rigorous connection between the discrete model and a general continuous variational model. Finally, numerical results on image inpainting and deblurring show that the proposed model is compared favorably against several popular image restoration models.     

Non-convex and non-smooth variational decomposition for image restoration

The variational image decomposition model decomposes an image into a structural and an oscillatory component by regularization technique and functional minimization. It is an important task in various image processing methods, such as image restoration, image segmentation, and object recognition. In this paper, we propose a non-convex and non-smooth variational decomposition model for image restoration that uses non-convex and non-smooth total variation (TV) to measure the structure component and the negative Sobolev space $H^{-1}$ to model the oscillatory component. The new model combines the advantages of non-convex regularization and weaker-norm texture modeling, and it can well remove the noises while preserving the valuable edges and contours of the image. The iteratively reweighted l¹ (IRL1) algorithm is employed to solve the proposed non-convex minimization problem. For each subproblem, we use the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm to solve it. Numerical results validate the effectiveness of the proposed model for both synthetic and real images in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and mean structural similarity index (MSSIM).     

Low-rank tensor completion via smooth matrix factorization

Low-rank modeling has achieved great success in tensor completion. However, the low-rank prior is not sufficient for the recovery of the underlying tensor, especially when the sampling rate (SR) is extremely low. Fortunately, many real world data exhibit the piecewise smoothness prior along both the spatial and the third modes (e.g., the temporal mode in video data and the spectral mode in hyperspectral data). Motivated by this observation, we propose a novel low-rank tensor completion model using smooth matrix factorization (SMF-LRTC), which exploits the piecewise smoothness prior along all modes of the underlying tensor by introducing smoothness constraints on the factor matrices. An efficient block successive upper-bound minimization (BSUM)-based algorithm is developed to solve the proposed model. The developed algorithm converges to the set of the coordinate-wise minimizers under some mild conditions. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over the compared ones.     

A novel enhancement method for low illumination images based on microarray camera

It is difficult but important to get clear information from the low illumination im-ages. In recent years the research of the low illumination image enhancement has become a hot topic in image processing and computer vision. The Retinex algorithm is one of the most popular methods in the field and uniform illumination is necessary to enhance low illumination image quality by using this algorithm. However, for the diff erent areas of an image with contrast brightness diff erences, the illumination image is not smooth and causes halo artifacts so that it cannot retain the detail information of the original images. To solve the problem, we gen-eralize the multi-scale Retinex algorithm and propose a new enhancement method for the low illumination images based on the microarray camera. The proposed method can well make up for the deficiency of imbalanced illumination and significantly inhibit the halo artifacts as well. Experimental results show that the proposed method can get better image enhancement eff ect compared to the multi-scale Retinex algorithm of a single image enhancement. Advantages of the method also include that it can significantly inhibit the halo artifacts and thus retain the details of the original images, it can improve the brightness and contrast of the image as well. The newly developed method in this paper has application potential to the images captured by pad and cell phone in the low illumination environment.     

On a New Diffeomorphic Multi-Modality Image Registration Model and Its Convergent Gauss-Newton Solver

In this work, we propose a new variational model for multi-modal image registration and present an efficient numerical implementation. The model minimizes a new functional based on using reformulated normalized gradients of the images as the fidelity term and higher-order derivatives as the regularizer. A key feature of the model is its ability of guaranteeing a diffeomorphic transformation which is achieved by a control term motivated by the quasi-conformal map and Beltrami coefficient. The existence of the solution of this model is established. To solve the model numerically, we design a Gauss-Newton method to solve the resulting discrete optimization problem and prove its convergence; a multilevel technique is employed to speed up the initialization and avoid likely local minima of the underlying functional. Finally, numerical experiments demonstrate that this new model can deliver good performances for multi-modal image registration and simultaneously generate an accurate diffeomorphic transformation.     

A detail preserving variational model for image Retinex

In this paper, we propose a detail preserving variational model for Retinex to simultaneously estimate the illumination and the reflectance from an observed image. Most previous models use the log-transform as pretreatment which results in loss of details in reflectance. From this observation, a detail preserving variational method is proposed for better decomposition. Different from the log-transform based models, the proposed model performs the decomposition directly in the image domain. Mathematically, we prove the existence of a solution for the proposed model. Numerically, we derive an efficient iterative algorithm by utilizing alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) method. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Compared with other closely related Retinex methods, the proposed method achieves competitive results on both subjective and objective assessments.     

IMAGE SEGMENTATION BY PIECEWISE CONSTANT MUMFORD-SHAH MODEL WITHOUT ESTIMATING THE CONSTANTS

In this work, we try to use the so-called Piecewise Constant Level Set Method （PCLSM） for the Mumford-Shah segmentation model. For image segmentation, the Mumford-Shah model needs to find the regions and the constant values inside the regions for the segmen- tation. In order to use PCLSM for this purpose, we need to solve a minimization problem using the level set function and the constant values as minimization variables. In this work, we test on a model such that we only need to minimize with respect to the level set function, i.e., we do not need to minimize with respect to the constant values. Gradient descent method and Newton method are used to solve the Euler-Lagrange equation for the minimization problem. Numerical experiments are given to show the efficiency and advantages of the new model and algorithms.     

A framelet algorithm for de-blurring images corrupted by multiplicative noise

This paper considers a variational model for restoring images from blurry and speckled observations. This model utilizes the favorable properties of framelet regularization (e.g., the sparsity and multiresolution properties of the framelet) that are well suited for speckle noise reduction. For solving the model, we first propose an approximation model that is motivated by the well-known variable-splitting and penalty techniques in optimization. We then develop an alternating minimization algorithm to solve the approximation model. We also show that the sequence generated by the algorithm converges to the solution of the proposed model. The numerical results on simulated data and real utrasound images demonstrate that our approach outperforms several state-of-the-art algorithms.     

A trust region algorithm for minimization of locally Lipschitzian functions

The classical trust region algorithm for smooth nonlinear programs is extended to the nonsmooth case where the objective function is only locally Lipschitzian. At each iteration, an objective function that carries both first and second order information is minimized over a trust region. The term that carries the first order information is an iteration function that may not explicitly depend on subgradients or directional derivatives. We prove that the algorithm is globally convergent. This convergence result extends the result of Powell for minimization of smooth functions, the result of Yuan for minimization of composite convex functions, and the result of Dennis, Li and Tapia for minimization of regular functions. In addition, compared with the recent model of Pang, Han and Rangaraj for minimization of locally Lipschitzian functions using a line search, this algorithm has the same convergence property without assuming positive definiteness and uniform boundedness of the second order term. Applications of the algorithm to various nonsmooth optimization problems are discussed.This author's work was supported in part by the Australian Research Council.This author's work was carried out while he was visiting the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of New South Wales.     

A fast multiphase level set algorithm for solving the Chan-Vese model

In this work, we specifically solve the C-V active contour model by multiphase level set methods. We first develop a fast algorithm based on calculating the variational energy of the C-V model without the length term. We check whether the energy decreases or not when we move a point to another segmented region. Then we draw a connection between this algorithm and the topological derivative, a concept emerged from the shape optimization field. Furthermore, to include the length term of the C-V model, a preprocessing step is taken by using nonlinear diffusion. Numerical experiments have demonstrated the efficiency and the robustness of our algorithm. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)