Wavelet frame based blind image inpainting

Image inpainting has been widely used in practice to repair damaged/missing pixels of given images. Most of the existing inpainting techniques require knowing beforehand where those damaged pixels are, either given as a priori or detected by some pre-processing. However, in certain applications, such information neither is available nor can be reliably pre-detected, e.g. removing random-valued impulse noise from images or removing certain scratches from archived photographs. This paper introduces a blind inpainting model to solve this type of problems, i.e., a model of simultaneously identifying and recovering damaged pixels of the given image. A tight frame based regularization approach is developed in this paper for such blind inpainting problems, and the resulted minimization problem is solved by the split Bregman algorithm first proposed by Goldstein and Osher (2009) [1]. The proposed blind inpainting method is applied to various challenging image restoration tasks, including recovering images that are blurry and damaged by scratches and removing image noise mixed with both Gaussian and random-valued impulse noise. The experiments show that our method is compared favorably against many available two-staged methods in these applications.     

Convergence analysis of tight framelet approach for missing data recovery

How to recover missing data from an incomplete samples is a fundamental problem in mathematics and it has wide range of applications in image analysis and processing. Although many existing methods, e.g. various data smoothing methods and PDE approaches, are available in the literature, there is always a need to find new methods leading to the best solution according to various cost functionals. In this paper, we propose an iterative algorithm based on tight framelets for image recovery from incomplete observed data. The algorithm is motivated from our framelet algorithm used in high-resolution image reconstruction and it exploits the redundance in tight framelet systems. We prove the convergence of the algorithm and also give its convergence factor. Furthermore, we derive the minimization properties of the algorithm and explore the roles of the redundancy of tight framelet systems. As an illustration of the effectiveness of the algorithm, we give an application of it in impulse noise removal.     

A “Nonconvex+Nonconvex” approach for image restoration with impulse noise removal

In this paper, we propose a new method for image restoration problems, which are degraded by impulsive noise, with nonconvex data fitting term and nonconvex regularizer.The proposed method possesses the advantages of nonconvex data fitting and nonconvex regularizer simultaneously, namely, robustness for impulsive noise and efficiency for restoring neat edge images.Further, we propose an efficient algorithm to solve the “Nonconvex+Nonconvex” structure problem via using the alternating direction minimization, and prove that the algorithm is globally convergent when the regularization parameter is known. However, the regularization parameter is unavailable in general. Thereby, we combine the algorithm with the continuation technique and modified Morozov’s discrepancy principle to get an improved algorithm in which a suitable regularization parameter can be chosen automatically. The experiments reveal the superior performances of the proposed algorithm in comparison with some existing methods.     

脉冲噪声下图像去模糊非光滑非凸最小化问题的近端线性化最小化算法

去除脉冲噪声是图像复原中的重要任务之一.我们提出一类非光滑非凸模型来恢复模糊和脉冲噪声污染的图像,该模型具有灵活的先验信息引入机制,如盒子约束或低秩等.为了求解所提非凸问题,我们采用近端线性化最小化算法.对于算法中的子问题,我们运用交替方向乘子法.在目标函数满足Kurdyka-Lojasiewicz性质的假设下,我们证明所提算法的全局收敛性.数值实验表明,在主观和客观质量评价方面,我们的方法优于$\ell_{1}$TV和非凸TV模型.     

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.     

Using an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system-based interpolant for impulsive noise suppression from highly distorted images

A new impulsive noise (IN) suppression filter, entitled Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS)-based impulsive noise suppression Filter, which shows a high performance at the restoration of images distorted by IN, is proposed in this paper. The extensive simulation results show that the proposed filter achieves a superior performance to the other filters mentioned in this paper in the cases of being effective in noise suppression and detail preservation, especially when the noise density is very high.     

Construction of parameterizations of masks for tight wavelet frames with two symmetric/antisymmetric generators and applications in image compression and denoising

In this paper, we present a general construction framework of parameterizations of masks for tight wavelet frames with two symmetric/antisymmetric generators which are of arbitrary lengths and centers. Based on this idea, we establish the explicit formulas of masks of tight wavelet frames. Additionally, we explore the transform applicability of tight wavelet frames in image compression and denoising. We bring forward an optimal model of masks of tight wavelet frames aiming at image compression with more efficiency, which can be obtained through SQP (Sequential Quadratic Programming) and a GA (Genetic Algorithm). Meanwhile, we present a new model called Cross-Local Contextual Hidden Markov Model (CLCHMM), which can effectively characterize the intrascale and cross-orientation correlations of the coefficients in the wavelet frame domain, and do research into the corresponding algorithm. Using the presented CLCHMM, we propose a new image denoising algorithm which has better performance as proved by the experiments.     

图像处理中全变差正则化数据拟合问题算法回顾

全变差正则化数据拟合问题产生于许多图像处理任务,如图像去噪、去模糊、图像修复、磁共振成像、压缩图像感知等.近年来,求解此类问题的快速高效算法发展很快.以最小二乘、最小一乘等为例简要回顾求解此类问题的主要算法,并讨论一个全变差正则化非凸数据拟合模型在脉冲噪声图像去模糊问题中的应用.     

Wave atoms and sparsity of oscillatory patterns

We introduce “wave atoms” as a variant of 2D wavelet packets obeying the parabolic scaling wavelength(diameter)². We prove that warped oscillatory functions, a toy model for texture, have a significantly sparser expansion in wave atoms than in other fixed standard representations like wavelets, Gabor atoms, or curvelets. We propose a novel algorithm for a tight frame of wave atoms with redundancy two, directly in the frequency plane, by the “wrapping” technique. We also propose variants of the basic transform for applications in image processing, including an orthonormal basis, and a shift-invariant tight frame with redundancy four. Sparsity and denoising experiments on both seismic and fingerprint images demonstrate the potential of the tool introduced.     

Fast color transfer from multiple images

Color transfer between images uses the statistics information of image effectively.We present a novel approach of local color transfer between images based on the simple statistics and locally linear embedding.A sketching interface is proposed for quickly and easily specifying the color correspondences between target and source image.The user can specify the correspondences of local region using scribes,which more accurately transfers the target color to the source image while smoothly preserving the boundaries,and exhibits more natural output results.Our algorithm is not restricted to one-to-one image color transfer and can make use of more than one target images to transfer the color in different regions in the source image.Moreover,our algorithm does not require to choose the same color style and image size between source and target images.We propose the sub-sampling to reduce the computational load.Comparing with other approaches,our algorithm is much better in color blending in the input data.Our approach preserves the other color details in the source image.Various experimental results show that our approach specifies the correspondences of local color region in source and target images.And it expresses the intention of users and generates more actual and natural results of visual effect.     

Robust dimension reduction,fusion frames,and Grassmannian packings

We consider estimating a random vector from its measurements in a fusion frame, in presence of noise and subspace erasures. A fusion frame is a collection of subspaces, for which the sum of the projection operators onto the subspaces is bounded below and above by constant multiples of the identity operator. We first consider the linear minimum mean-squared error (LMMSE) estimation of the random vector of interest from its fusion frame measurements in the presence of additive white noise. Each fusion frame measurement is a vector whose elements are inner products of an orthogonal basis for a fusion frame subspace and the random vector of interest. We derive bounds on the mean-squared error (MSE) and show that the MSE will achieve its lower bound if the fusion frame is tight. We then analyze the robustness of the constructed LMMSE estimator to erasures of the fusion frame subspaces. We limit our erasure analysis to the class of tight fusion frames and assume that all erasures are equally important. Under these assumptions, we prove that tight fusion frames consisting of equi-dimensional subspaces have maximum robustness (in the MSE sense) with respect to erasures of one subspace among all tight fusion frames, and that the optimal subspace dimension depends on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We also prove that tight fusion frames consisting of equi-dimensional subspaces with equal pairwise chordal distances are most robust with respect to two and more subspace erasures, among the class of equi-dimensional tight fusion frames. We call such fusion frames equi-distance tight fusion frames. We prove that the squared chordal distance between the subspaces in such fusion frames meets the so-called simplex bound, and thereby establish connections between equi-distance tight fusion frames and optimal Grassmannian packings. Finally, we present several examples for the construction of equi-distance tight fusion frames.     

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.     

Adaptive Segmentation Model for Images with Intensity Inhomogeneity based on Local Neighborhood Contrast

Segmentation of images with intensity inhomogeneity is a significant task in the field of image processing, especially in medical image processing and analysis. Some local region-based models work well on handling intensity inhomogeneity, but they are always sensitive to contour initialization and high noise. In this paper, we present an adaptive segmentation model for images with intensity inhomogeneity in the form of partial differential equation. Firstly, a global intensity fitting term and a local intensity fitting term are constructed by employing the global and local image information, respectively. Secondly, a tradeoff function is defined to adjust adaptively the weight between two fitting terms, which is based on the neighborhood contrast of image pixel. Finally, a weighted regularization term related to local entropy is used to ensure the smoothness of evolution curve. Meanwhile, a distance regularization term is added for stable level set evolution. Experimental results show that the proposed model without initial contour can segment inhomogeneous images stably and effectively, which thereby avoiding the influence of contour initialization on segmentation results. Besides, the proposed model works better on noise images comparing with two relevant segmentation models.     

A variational approach for restoring images corrupted by noisy blur kernels and additive noise

In this paper, we study a deblurring algorithm for distorted images by random impulse response. We propose and develop a convex optimization model to recover the underlying image and the blurring function simultaneously. The objective function is composed of 3 terms: the data‐fitting term between the observed image and the product of the estimated blurring function and the estimated image, the squared difference between the estimated blurring function and its mean, and the total variation regularization term for the estimated image. We theoretically show that under some mild conditions, the resulting objective function can be convex in which the global minimum value is unique. The numerical results confirm that the peak‐to‐signal‐noise‐ratio and structural similarity of the restored images by the proposed algorithm are the best when the proposed objective function is convex. We also present a proximal alternating minimization scheme to solve the resulting minimization problem. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and the efficiency of the numerical scheme.     

Nonlocal patches based Gaussian mixture model for image inpainting

We consider the inpainting problem for noisy images. It is very challenge to suppress noise when image inpainting is processed. An image patches based nonlocal variational method is proposed to simultaneously inpainting and denoising in this paper. Our approach is developed on an assumption that the small image patches should be obeyed a distribution which can be described by a high dimension Gaussian Mixture Model. By a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation, we formulate a new regularization term according to the log-likelihood function of the mixture model. To optimize this regularization term efficiently, we adopt the idea of the Expectation Maximization (EM) algorithm. In which, the expectation step can give an adaptive weighting function which can be regarded as a nonlocal connections among pixels. Using this fact, we built a framework for non-local image inpainting under noise. Moreover, we mathematically prove the existence of minimizer for the proposed inpainting model. By using a splitting algorithm, the proposed model are able to realize image inpainting and denoising simultaneously. Numerical results show that the proposed method can produce impressive reconstructed results when the inpainting region is rather large.     

Simultaneously inpainting in image and transformed domains

In this paper, we focus on the restoration of images that have incomplete data in either the image domain or the transformed domain or in both. The transform used can be any orthonormal or tight frame transforms such as orthonormal wavelets, tight framelets, the discrete Fourier transform, the Gabor transform, the discrete cosine transform, and the discrete local cosine transform. We propose an iterative algorithm that can restore the incomplete data in both domains simultaneously. We prove the convergence of the algorithm and derive the optimal properties of its limit. The algorithm generalizes, unifies, and simplifies the inpainting algorithm in image domains given in Cai et al. (Appl Comput Harmon Anal 24:131–149, 2008) and the inpainting algorithms in the transformed domains given in Cai et al. (SIAM J Sci Comput 30(3):1205–1227, 2008), Chan et al. (SIAM J Sci Comput 24:1408–1432, 2003; Appl Comput Harmon Anal 17:91–115, 2004). Finally, applications of the new algorithm to super-resolution image reconstruction with different zooms are presented. R. H. Chan’s research was supported in part by HKRGC Grant 400505 and CUHK DAG 2060257. L. Shen’s research was supported by the US National Science Foundation under grant DMS-0712827. Z. Shen’s research was supported in part by Grant R-146-000-060-112 at the National University of Singapore.     

A Nonlinear Diffusion Equation-Based Model for Ultrasound Speckle Noise Removal

Ultrasound images are contaminated by speckle noise, which brings difficulties in further image analysis and clinical diagnosis. In this paper, we address this problem in the view of nonlinear diffusion equation theories. We develop a nonlinear diffusion equation-based model by taking into account not only the gradient information of the image, but also the information of the gray levels of the image. By utilizing the region indicator as the variable exponent, we can adaptively control the diffusion type which alternates between the Perona–Malik diffusion and the Charbonnier diffusion according to the image gray levels. Furthermore, we analyze the proposed model with respect to the theoretical and numerical properties. Experiments show that the proposed method achieves much better speckle suppression and edge preservation when compared with the traditional despeckling methods, especially in the low gray level and low-contrast regions.     

Image segmentation by level set evolution with region consistency constraint

Image segmentation is a key and fundamental problem in image processing, computer graphics, and computer vision. Level set based method for image segmentation is used widely for its topology flexibility and proper mathematical formulation. However, poor performance of existing level set models on noisy images and weak boundary limit its application in image segmentation. In this paper, we present a region consistency constraint term to measure the regional consistency on both sides of the boundary, this term defines the boundary of the image within a range, and hence increases the stability of the level set model. The term can make existing level set models significantly improve the efficiency of the algorithms on segmenting images with noise and weak boundary. Furthermore, this constraint term can make edge-based level set model overcome the defect of sensitivity to the initial contour. The experimental results show that our algorithm is efficient for image segmentation and outperform the existing state-of-art methods regarding images with noise and weak boundary.     

Global dynamics analysis of a nonlinear impulsive stochastic chemostat system in a polluted environment

This paper intends to develop a new method to obtain the threshold of an impulsive stochastic chemostat model with saturated growth rate in a polluted environment. By using the theory of impulsive differential equations and stochastic differential equations, we obtain conditions for the extinction and the permanence of the microorganisms of the deterministic chemostat model and the stochastic chemostat model. We develop a new numerical computation method for impulsive stochastic differential system to simulate and illustrate our theoretical conclusions. The biological results show that a small stochastic disturbance can cause the microorganism to die out, that is, a permanent deterministic system can go to extinction under the white noise stochastic disturbance. The theoretical method can also be used to explore the threshold of some impulsive stochastic differential equations.     

Fast incremental algorithm for speeding up the computation of binarization

Binarization is an important basic operation in image processing community. Based on the thresholded value, the gray image can be segmented into a binary image, usually consisting of background and foreground. Given the histogram of input gray image, based on minimizing the within-variance (or maximizing the between-variance), the Otsu method can obtain a satisfactory binary image. In this paper, we first transfer the within-variance criterion into a new mathematical formulation, which is very suitable to be implemented in a fast incremental way, and it leads to the same thresholded value. Following our proposed incremental computation scheme, an efficient heap- and quantization-based (HQ-based) data structure is presented to realize its implementation. Under eight real gray images, experimental results show that our proposed HQ-based incremental algorithm for binarization has 36% execution-time improvement ratio in average when compared to the Otsu method. Besides this significant speedup, our proposed HQ-based incremental algorithm can also be applied to speed up the Kittler and Illingworth method for binarization.