K Pritamdas1, Kh Manglem Singh2, L Lolitkumar Singh3. 1. Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE), NIT Manipur, Takyelpat, Imphal, 795001 India. 2. CSE, NIT Manipur, Takyelpat, Imphal, India. 3. ECE, Mizoram University, Aizawl, India.
Abstract
A new adaptive switching algorithm is presented where two adaptive filters are switched correspondingly for lower and higher noise ratio of the image. An adaptive center weighted vector median filter is used for the lower noise ratio whereas for higher noise ratio the noisy pixels are detected based on the comparison of the difference between the mean of the vector pixels in the window and the approximated variance of the vector pixels in the window. Then the window comprising the detected noisy pixel is further considered where the pixels are given exponential weights according to their similarity to the other neighboring pixels, spatially and radio metrically. The noisy pixels are then replaced by the weighted average of the pixels within the window. The filter is able to preserve higher signal content in the higher noise ratio as compared to other robust filters in comparison. With a little high in computational complexity, this technique performs well both in lower and higher noise ratios. Simulation results on various RGB images show that the proposed algorithm outperforms many other existing nonlinear filters in terms of preservation of edges and fine details.
A new adaptive switching algorithm is presented where two adaptive filters are switched correspondingly for lower and higher noise ratio of the image. An adaptive center weighted vector median filter is used for the lower noise ratio whereas for higher noise ratio the noisy pixels are detected based on the comparison of the difference between the mean of the vector pixels in the window and the approximated variance of the vector pixels in the window. Then the window comprising the detected noisy pixel is further considered where the pixels are given exponential weights according to their similarity to the other neighboring pixels, spatially and radio metrically. The noisy pixels are then replaced by the weighted average of the pixels within the window. The filter is able to preserve higher signal content in the higher noise ratio as compared to other robust filters in comparison. With a little high in computational complexity, this technique performs well both in lower and higher noise ratios. Simulation results on various RGB images show that the proposed algorithm outperforms many other existing nonlinear filters in terms of preservation of edges and fine details.
Filtering is one of the most essential steps in the applications of image processing. An image must contain the required data to show the correct information before it is used for any image processing application. But images are usually corrupted with unwanted information that causes hindrance to an efficient image processing operations. These unwanted information which are termed as noise must be removed properly from the image as a preprocessing step. Additive random noise (Gaussian noise) and salt and pepper noise are some of the most common noises found in digital image. Impulse noise which may be fixed valued noise (FVN) or random valued noise (RVN) is one of the most naturally occurring noises in digital images and it is induced in the image during image acquisition by faulty sensors or during transmission through communication channels. Noise removal techniques depends on the type of noises degrading the image and also largely on the percentage of noise corrupting the image. A number of robust filters have been proposed in literature for filtering the color images corrupted with impulse noise. Non-linear filters which actually work in spatial domain suit well for impulse noise removal from color images (Celebi et al. 2007).Initial approach like the marginal median filter (MMF) treats the color image channel wise in a scalar form which often leads to color artifacts (Pitas 1990). The nonlinear filters like the vector median filter (VMF) (Astola et al. 1990) and the basic vector directional filter (BVDF) (Trahanias and Venetsanopoulos 1992) which consider the color pixels as vectors and work on the concept of order-static filters, are very efficient for the impulse noise removal of color images. The VMF forms a sorted array of the cumulative distance of intensity value of the vector pixels from the surrounding pixels in the window, and then the corresponding vector pixel which gives the least value of cumulative distance in the sorted array is substituted as the vector median instead of the center pixel. And in case of VDF, the sorted array is of the cumulative angular distance of the vector pixels from the surrounding vectors in the window. Thus the output of the VDF is the vector pixel that corresponds to the least value of cumulative angular distance. The directional-distance filter (DDF) (Karakos and Trahanias 1995) combines the μ magnitude part from the VMF and the (1 − μ) angular part from the VDF in calculating the cumulative distances from a vector pixel to the other in the filtering window. The center weighted VMF (CWVMF) (Smolka et al. 2012a), center weighted VDF (CWVDF) and the center weighted DDF (CWDDF) highlight the center pixel by assigning more weight. These filters have a tendency to preserve the center pixel in the filtering window which reduces the efficiency in higher noise ratio. These are the popular filters where the filtering is done uniformly across the pixels without using an actual noise detection algorithm. These filters tend to modify the uncorrupted pixels which result in blurring of the edges and loss of fine details of the image.To overcome this particular issue noise detection schemes are introduced in the rank order static filters (Lukac 2004, Lukar and Smolka 2003), that check whether the center pixel is noisy or not. Then the noisy pixel is replaced by the output of a vector filter otherwise it is left unaltered. The adaptive CWVMF (ACWVMF) (Lukac and Smolka 2003), adaptive CWVDF (ACWVDF) (Lukac 2004) and adaptive CWDDF (ACWDDF) replace the center pixel by the output of VMF, VDF and DDF respectively, if the difference between the center pixel and the corresponding center-weighted vector median is greater than a user specified threshold. A weight in the range of 0–1 is given to cumulative distance of the center pixel, for getting the vector median of the modified CWVMF (MCWVMF).In the peer group filter (PGF) the pixels in the window is sorted according to their differences from the center pixel, then a peer group of is selected from the sorted array, where n is the number of vector pixels in the window. If the difference between any two pixels from the peer group is greater than user-specified threshold, then the center pixel is replaced with the output of VMF. And if the difference of the individual pixel, in the peer group m, from the center pixel is less than a user specified threshold, then the center pixel is replaced with the VMF, which results in the fast PGF (FPGF) (Kenny et al. 2001; Smolka and Chydzinski 2005; Malinski and Smolka 2015). The adaptive VMF (AVMF) and adaptive VDF (AVDF) replace the center pixel with the output of VMF and VDF respectively if their respective cumulative distance is greater than a user specified threshold and T (Lukac 2002, 2003).The entropy VMF (EVMF), entropy VDF (EVDF) and entropy DDF (EDDF) are the group of entropy vector filters which replace the center pixel with the output of VMF, VDF and DDF respectively, if the local contrast entropy of the center pixel is greater than its local contrast entropic threshold multiplied by a weighting factor υ (Lukac et al. 2003).The Neuvo VMF (NVMF) (Sun and Neuvo 1994) is that kind of vector filter where the center pixel is considered to be noisy if its difference from the vector median is bigger than a predefined threshold. For the rank-conditioned VMF (RCVMF), rank-conditioned VDF (RCVDF) and rank-conditioned DDF (RCDDF), with respect to ascending order of the respective cumulative distances, a subset of the vector pixels excluding the minimum and maximum values is formed (Singh and Bora 2004). If the center pixel is not in the ordered subset, then it is replaced by the output of VMF, VDF and DDF respectively. If l is the number of pixels in the ordered set, then position of the noisy center pixel will be outside the range of l. In the rank-conditioned and threshold VMF (RCTVMF), rank-conditioned and threshold VDF (RCTVDF) and rank-conditioned and threshold DDF (RCTDDF) (Singh and Bora 2004; Smolka et al. 2012b), the center pixel is considered as noisy if it does not belong in the trimmed set and its difference from the respective vector median is greater than a pre-defined threshold.The group of fuzzy weighted filters namely the fuzzy vector median filter (FVMF), fuzzy vector directional filter (FVDF) and fuzzy directional distance filter (FDDF) weight the pixels in the filtering window according to their respective cumulative distance before replacing the center pixel with the average of the weighted pixels. These filters use certain parameters α and β to adjust amount of fuzziness in weighting the pixels (Plataniostis et al. 1996, 1999). The fuzzy ordered vector filter (FOVMF) picks up the first l elements of the ordered set of cumulative distances, and then assigns the weight only to the corresponding pixels.In the signal dependent rank-ordered mean (SDM), if the difference between the center pixel and the first four pixels of the rank-ordered set of pixels is greater than four separate thresholds T
, T
, T
and T
respectively, Moore et al. (1999) then the center pixel is replaced with the output of VMF. The robust switching vector median filter (RSVMF) proposed by Celebi and Aslandogan considers the noisy pixel to be a noisy pixel if the cumulative distance with respect to the center pixel is greater than a predefined percentage β of the cumulative distance associated with the median (Celebi and Aslandogan 2008).The non-causal linear predictor based filters use the concept of linear prediction (Singh 2012; Singh and Bora 2003) for estimating the center pixel as a weighted combination of past and future vector pixels with respect to the center pixel. It is based on the fact that there exists a strong correlation among the neighborhood pixels of a window centered at a vector pixel.The non-causal vector median filter (NCVMF) (Singh and Bora 2014) first filters the image using VMF, then estimates the center pixel using constrained intra-channel linear predictor (Hu et al. 1997) by considering the eight second order pixels (see Fig. 1) (David and Ramamurthi 1991; Asif and Moura 1996; Asif 2004). Then if the difference between the predicted pixel and the center pixel is greater than or equal to a user-specified threshold, the center pixel is replaced by the output of VMF, VDF or DDF. In the rank conditioned non-causal vector median filter (NCRVMF), the value of index p, which corresponds to the least valued element from the sorted array of cumulative distance of the vector pixels in the window, is compared with a threshold, which is calculated based on the standard deviations of the separate three channels of the image. If the value of k is greater than that of the threshold T, then the center pixel is predicted considering the 2nd order non-causal regions. The non causal vector median filter 2nd order non causal (NCVMF_2nc) considers only the upper four non causal pixels out of the eight, from the 2nd order region excluding the center pixel. The non causal vector median filter 1st order non causal (NCVMF_1nc) considers the four 1st order pixels from the non causal region. The non causal vector median filter 1st order causal (NCVMF_1c) predicts the center pixel using the two pixels of the 1st order causal region.
Fig. 1
Block of causal and non causal regions showing different orders
Block of causal and non causal regions showing different ordersThe adaptive vector marginal median filter (AVMMF) compares the cumulative distance of the center pixel with that of the sorted array of the cumulative distance of all the pixels in the window, so that center pixel lies in the l index in the sorted array (Morillas et al. 2011). And if l is greater than the index defining the center of the window, then the center pixel is replaced by the median of the vector medians for n = 1, 2, …, k, where n is the index of the sorted array of cumulative distances of the pixels in the window.The vector sigma filters (Lukac et al. 2006) which are based on approximated variance of the vector pixels in the window are grouped into adaptive and non-adaptive. The multivariate variance is calculated either based on the vector mean or the lowest ranked vector, vector median. In the non-adaptive group of vector sigma filters the center pixel is replaced with the output of VMF, VDF and DDF, if the cumulative distance of the center pixel is greater than a threshold, calculated based on the cumulative distance of the mean vector or the vector median and a parameter μ. This results to the corresponding non-adaptive sigma vector filters as SVMF_MEAN, SVMF_RANK, SVDF_MEAN, SVDF_RANK, SDDF_MEAN and SDDF_RANK respectively. Then the groups of adaptive sigma vector filters are ASVMF_MEAN, ASVMF_RANK, ASVDF_MEAN, ASVDF_RANK, SDDF_MEAN and ASDDF_RANK correspondingly. Here the center pixel is replaced with output of VMF, VDF and DDF respectively if the difference between the center pixel and the mean vector or the vector median is greater than the product of the corresponding approximated variance and a weighting parameter μ, where the approximated variance is calculated based on the cumulative distance of the vector pixels in the window from that of the mean vector.Many robust filters for impulse noise removal have been proposed in the literature but most of them which work efficiently in the lower noise ratio, lack considerably in the higher noise ratio. Filters like CWVMF, CWVDF, CWDDF, RCTVDF, RCTVDF, RCTDDF etc. which perform very well in the lowest noise ratio group, are not efficient in the higher noise ratio group. On the other hand filters like ASVMF_MEAN, ASDDF_MEAN and EVMF work quite well both in lowest and highest noise ratio group.In this work, a simple algorithm checks the impulse noise ratio in the image prior to the implementation of the noise detection algorithms, depending on which two filters are switched accordingly from lower noise ratio to higher and vice versa. In the higher nose ratio, the noisy pixels are identified with the help of noise detection algorithm, based on how much the center pixel is different from the mean vector of the neighboring vectors in the widow (Lukac et al. 2006). Then the detected noisy pixels are replaced with the output of modified exponentially weighted mean filter (Celebi et al. 2007) based on the concept of bilateral filter (Tomashi and Manduchi 1998; Daniel John 2013; Kaur et al. 2015), whereas the uncorrupted pixels are kept untouched.“Proposed method” section describes the proposed method. Noise model performance measuring parameters are described briefly in the next “Filter evaluation” section and finally the details are summarized and concluded in “Conclusions” section.
Proposed method
Let a color image X of size P × Q be represented by a 2-D array of 3 component vectors represented as,where and represents the row and column indices. R, G and B represent the Red, Green and Blue components of the vector pixel (p,q). As usual in the basic filtering approach, a window W of odd size m × n centered at (p,q) is considered (see Fig. 2). Considering the fact that impulse noise is distributed randomly which results in the variation of noise content in different parts of the image, before checking whether the center pixel is noisy or not, a localized impulse noise probability P
, in the window comprising the center pixel is calculated as,where N
is the number of 0 s and 255 s in the window. If , then the center pixel is replaced with the output of the ACWVMF, otherwise it is replaced with the output of the modified ASVMF_MEAN, MASVMF_MEAN, to give the overall proposed noise percentage based switching filter, NPSF as shown below
T
and T
are the lower and higher threshold value of p
. x
is the output of NPSF and x
is the output of ACWVMF which is defined aswhere , T is the threshold, with which the difference of the center pixel from the output of CWVMF is compared with and x
is the output of CWVMF which is given asandrepresents the weight to be given to the center pixel.
Fig. 2
A 3 × 3 window of color vectors with their coordinates
A 3 × 3 window of color vectors with their coordinatesACWVMF is chosen for the window with less number of impulse noises, like if at the most one number of 0 or 255 is present. It is a very robust filter which is very efficient and flexible in removing impulse noise, which actually allows one to design an optimal filter for a particular domain by adjusting the weights assigned to the center pixel. The weights are estimated using an optimization procedure in Eq. 5 by using a number of training images (Celebi et al. 2007). u is used as the smoothing parameter such that if u = 1 the ACWVMF becomes an identity filter and so no smoothing will be performed and if the value of u increases from 1 to 5, the smoothing potential of the filter increases. When u reaches the value of c, lastly the ACWVMF becomes the VMF where the maximum amount of smoothing is done. In this paper three values of u is chosen from v to v + 2, for which three respective CWVMF outputs are determined to be subtracted from their respective center pixel as seen in Eq. 4. And if the sum of the three differences is greater than the threshold T then the center pixel is replaced with the output of VMF. In the ACWVMF the center pixel is highlighted or given more importance without a prior knowledge of whether it is a noisy pixel or not, by assigning a variable weight by Eq. 5, that makes the ACWVMF more suitable to be considered for windows which contain at the most one 0 or 255. The ACWVMF has a tendency to preserve the center pixel that makes it more suitable for lower noised region of the image.And for the window with two or more number of 0 s and 255 s, a detection algorithm based on ASVMF_MEAN is used where the noisy pixel is detected based on the comparison of the center pixel with that of an approximated variance of the vector pixels in the filtering window (see Fig. 3). Depending on the fact that the impulse noise usually has very high or very low pixel value as compared to the surrounding pixels, the variance is calculated based on the mean vector of the pixels in the window, where mean is considered as one of the most probable values other than the vector median, for substituting the noisy pixel. Once the noisy pixels are detected, they will be replaced by the output of an exponentially weighted filter. The complete algorithm of noise detection using the approximated variance and replacement of the center pixel by the output of the exponentially weighted filter, defines the MASVMF_MEAN.
Fig. 3
Flowchart of the proposed algorithm
Flowchart of the proposed algorithmThe variance σ
2, which is to be compared with, is calculated as,where,
is the mean of the vector pixels in the window W. For checking the pixels to be noisy or not, the difference of the center pixel, (p,q) from the mean,
is compared with the approximated variance, σ
2 multiplied by a weighting factor , to give and if , then the centered pixel (p,q) is considered to be a noisy pixel.This particular detection algorithm based on ASVMF_MEAN is suitable for higher noise region of the image because the approximated variance is calculated based on the cumulative difference of the vector pixels from the mean, which means that all the pixels whether impulse noise or not are considered and are given similar importance. And the vector pixel is treated as impulse noise if it is having a bigger difference from the mean, as compared to average of the difference of vector pixels from the mean as seen in Eqs. 6 and 7. Then the window where the center pixel is detected as noisy pixel is further considered for further classification of the vector pixels among themselves with respect to their individual importance in the window. This further classification is helpful for window with more number of impulse noises where more number of 0 s and 255 s are present as it helps in more efficient detection of noisy pixel. The classification and the corresponding assignment of weights to the respective vector pixel according to their importance in the window is given by the equationwhere
AndThen the noisy pixel is replaced with the output of the exponentially weighted mean filter given asAbiding by the normalization procedure, two constraints are necessary to make it sure that the output of Ewmf is an unbiased one, namely: (a) each weight for a respective vector pixel
i is a positive number, y
≥ 0 and (b) . The parameters α, η and β are used to tune the amount of weight to be given to the pixels. To obey the above constraints so that the output is unbiased, it is made that where since the values of d(i) and l(i) will be in the range of k where excluding . And β is the value of α at which the weighting function w
takes the maximum derivative. The value of η = 1 − α also makes it sure that the two components in Eq. 8 are dependent and correlated to each other according to the noise probability of the sliding window. The first component described by Eqs. 9 and 10, depends on the cumulative distance of intensity difference of each pixel from its surrounding neighboring pixels. If the value of d(i) for a particular pixel x
is larger, than it means that the intensity difference of the particular pixel from its surrounding is very large and has more tendencies to be an impulse noisy pixel. Therefore less weight is given to the pixel and vice versa. Whereas the second component as described by Eqs. 11 and 12, depends on the cumulative distance of coordinate or position difference of the pixel from its surrounding pixels. It is based on the fact that a pixel which is far away from the center pixel spatially is of less importance. Therefore a pixel
i with a large value of l(i) is far away from the center pixel (p,q) and is of less resemblance or importance, to be assigned with less weight. And it can be also seen that the parameters α and η are inversely proportional to the weight w
.Further for a particular value of d(i) and l(i), the amount of weight assigned is again controlled by the respective values of α and η. If any of α or η is having a value of 1 then the other will be 0 that avoids the condition for both the components to be considered simultaneously. The condition that makes it achievable that, for the window with a comparatively lesser number of 0 s and 255 s in the region of and with a lesser value of d(i), more weight is allowed to be assigned to the pixel by the first component of Eq. 8 with a lesser value of α, thus highlighting the first component, that subsequently makes the second component which is made of l(i) to be less important with a comparatively higher value of . Whereas in the window with more number of 0 s and 255 s which usually has a higher value of d(i), less weight is made to be assigned by the first component with higher value of α and thus the second component is given more importance with a comparatively lesser value of . This fact is supported by the results in Tables 1 and 2 where the values of NCD, PSNR, MAE and TIME are listed at different noise ratios and at different values of α and η for fixed valued and random valued noise correspondingly. And the values of α and η at which the value of PSNR and other measuring parameters attain their maximum values is highlighted. The selection of values for the parameters is further discussed in part C: Parameter selection, of section III.
Table 1
Various measuring criteria and their values at different values of α and η at different noise ratio, for the proposed filter for FVN
Values of α and η
FVN
FVN
FVN
FVN
.10
.20
.80
.90
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
Lower values of α
0.5, 0.5
0.0043
37.242
0.669
5.450
0.005
35.511
1.139
7.260
0.017
27.312
5.61
15.44
0.0220
24.946
7.90
16.44
0.4, 0.6
0.0040
37.315
0.668
5.563
0.005
35.541
1.148
7.475
0.020
26.335
6.66
16.37
0.0221
23.928
9.62
17.25
0.3, 0.7
0.0040
37.246
0.689
5.574
0.005
35.074
1.242
7.420
0.024
23.967
9.83
16.17
0.0302
21.868
13.6
17.34
Higher values of α
0.6, 0.4
0.0058
37.169
0.670
5.506
0.005
35.421
1.145
7.458
0.014
27.568
5.28
16.23
0.0218
25.893
6.80
17.27
0.7, 0.3
0.0058
37.204
0.669
5.559
0.005
35.577
1.137
7.379
0.018
27.866
5.15
16.28
0.0201
25.931
6.65
17.35
0.8, 0.2
0.0054
37.222
0.674
5.545
0.005
35.291
1.163
7.483
0.017
27.508
5.25
16.34
0.0211
25.851
6.66
17.37
Table 2
Various measuring criteria and their values at different values of α and η at different noise ratio, for the proposed filter for RVN
Values of α and η
RVN
RVN
RVN
RVN
.10
.20
.80
.90
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
Lower values of α
0.5, 0.5
0.0017
36.928
0.666
3.90
0.003
35.152
1.134
4.504
0.015
27.618
5.32
8.72
0.0219
25.981
6.84
9.52
0.4, 0.6
0.0016
37.063
0.655
3.95
0.003
35.161
1.147
4.560
0.018
27.239
5.67
9.07
0.0227
25.611
7.39
9.92
0.3, 0.7
0.0017
37.056
0.667
4.02
0.003
34.972
1.171
4.711
0.019
25.967
7.03
9.08
0.0253
24.105
9.48
9.90
Higher values of α
0.6, 0.4
0.0017
37.023
0.658
4.17
0.002
35.102
1.135
4.616
0.016
27.748
5.28
9.06
0.0212
26.237
6.65
9.85
0.7, 0.3
0.0018
37.017
0.660
4.04
0.003
35.042
1.143
4.623
0.017
27.707
5.23
9.06
0.0204
26.134
6.68
9.92
0.8, 0.2
0.0019
36.899
0.668
3.99
0.005
35.092
1.144
4.640
0.017
27.662
5.25
9.10
0.0215
25.980
6.73
9.92
Various measuring criteria and their values at different values of α and η at different noise ratio, for the proposed filter for FVNVarious measuring criteria and their values at different values of α and η at different noise ratio, for the proposed filter for RVN
Filter evaluation
The filters are evaluated in this section on a variety of RGB color images, which includes scientific images, biomedical images, photographic images, synthetic images and a group of images generally used in the color image processing literature, for a better comparison on the performance of the filters, by considering a 3 × 3 window size with L
1 and L
2 norms. Figure 4 shows the 12 representative images of Lena image, Mandrill, Airplane, Aptus, Barbara, Brain, Couple, Girl, Gold hill, House, Lake and Miramar.
Fig. 4
Test images: a Lena, b Mandrill, c Airplane, d Aptus, e Barbara, f Brain, g Couple, h Girl, i Gold hill, j House, k Lake and l Tiffany
Test images: a Lena, b Mandrill, c Airplane, d Aptus, e Barbara, f Brain, g Couple, h Girl, i Gold hill, j House, k Lake and l Tiffany
Noise model
An impulse noise model which is commonly used in the literature of filtering of color images is used in this work (Viero et al. 1994). Let b be the probability of corruption of the color image with the impulse noise. A color image has three vector components, where each component has a chance of being corrupted by the impulse noise with a respective corruption probability. Let b
, b
and b
be the probabilities of impulse noise corruption of the three components R, G and B respectively.
and represent the original and the corrupted vector pixels respectively. And the impulse noise is represented by the random vector which can be a vector of 0 or 255 or both. The images are induced with both fixed valued noise and random valued noise with noise ratio ranging from 10 to 90%. For the fixed valued noise, η
can be either 0 or 225, whereas it can be any random value ranging from 0 to 255 for the random valued noise.
Filter performance measurements
Execution time, mean absolute error (MAE) (Singh and Bora 2014), normalized color difference (NCD) (Singh and Bora 2014) and peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) (Plataniotis and Venetsanopoulos 2000) are the performance measuring parameters which will be used to evaluate the filters in comparison. Color chromaticity preservation capability of a filter is measured with NCD. A filtered image is said to preserve its chromaticity if it is free from the shadowy effects whereas MAE represents the noise suppression and the signal–detail preservation capability. MAE is mathematically expressed as
and are the original and the filtered image respectively. and are the red, green and blue components of the original image and filtered image respectively. It can be seen that with the help of the above equation a slight difference between the original and filtered image can be highlighted properly for better comparison between the filters. The NCD is defined in the color space bywhere and are the respective values of the lightness and two chrominance components of the original image and filtered image . And the signal content of the image is described by PSNR which is expressed aswhere is the maximum intensity for an image in a particular channel. 24 bits images of size 512 × 512 are considered in this work, where b = 8, is the number of bits in a pixel for the particular channel and x
is equal to 255.
Parameter selection
The exponential weight is found using Eq. 6 where the weight is controlled by the three parameters α, η and β. As seen from the weight equation, α and η are inversely proportional to the weight as seen in Eq. 8. Analyzing the simulation results on the various images, it is found that at the lower noise ratio, 10% and 20% as representative in this work, the PSNR attains its maximum value at lower value of ∝ = 0.4 and comparatively higher value of η = 0.6, supported by the fact that more weight is given by the first component in Eq. 8 to the pixels at lower noise ratio, during which most of the pixels in the window tends to be less impulse. Whereas the PSNR attains its maximum value at a relatively higher value of around α = 0.6 or 0.7 and comparatively lower value of η = 0.4 or 0.3 for higher noise ratio, during which less weight is necessary by the pixels in the window from the first component and instead more from the second component is considered, since their probability to be impulse is more. Therefore and are considered for the highest noise ratio (80 and 90%) with relatively smaller value of α = 0.4 and higher value of η = 0.6 for lower noise ratio (10 and 20%) for fixed valued noise and random valued noise respectively (see Tables 1, 2). The above discussion concludes that the first component controlled the parameter α plays a bigger role as compared to the second component controlled by parameter η in Eq. 8. The values of β and are set as 1 and 0.5 respectively. Considering the Eqs. 4 and 5 which represents the expression for ACWVMF, the value of ν is considered as 3 so that u goes from 3 to 5, for which three different x
is calculated with three different respectively. The values of T
and T
in Eq. 3 are set as 0.000 and 0.111 respectively. The parameters and their respective values selection, for both fixed valued and random valued noise, for other filters in comparison are shown in Table 3.
Table 3
Filters in comparison (excluding the proposed filter), with their respective parameters’ values at which the filters are implemented
Filters in comparison (excluding the proposed filter), with their respective parameters’ values at which the filters are implemented
Comparison with other existing filters
The performance comparison of the various filters is shown in Tables 4 and 5. Figure 5 shows the graphical comparison of the MASVMF_MEAN, VMF, ACWVMF, EVMF, ASVMF_MEAN, RCTVMF, NVMF, SDM and NCVMF_1nc. The PSNR which defines the signal content of the filtered image has been given more importance for comparing the performance.
Filters like ACWVMF, ACWVDF, NVMF and PGF perform very well in lower noise ratio and also work efficiently in higher noise ratio. The RCTVMF and MCWVMF are very efficient in preserving the signal content in the lower noise ratio but perform inefficiently in the higher noise ratio. Whereas the EVMF and the vector sigma group of filters namely the ASDDF_RANK, ASVMF_MEAN, ASDDF_MEAN work efficiently in higher noise ratio although not very well in the lower noise ratio as compared to the case of ACWVMF and its allies mentioned above. But generally it can be clearly seen that the Adaptive switching filters like the Adaptive center weighted vector filters, Vector sigma filters, Adaptive vector filters and entropy based vector filters, first detect the noisy pixels using certain noise detection algorithm, before replacing the center pixel with the output of some vector filter and thus is able to give higher PSNR values than those of the non adaptive switching filters like the basic vector filters, fuzzy weighted filters etc. Therefore the adaptive switching filters are able to restore the original find details of the image better than the non-adaptive filters.
Table 4
Comparison of the filters for the Lena image induced with FVN at 10, 20, 80 and 90% based on NCD, PSNR, MAE and TIME
FVN
FVN
FVN
FVN
.10
.20
.80
.90
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
VMF
0.021
31.753
3.720
1.76
0.018
31.289
3.937
1.76
0.023
26.574
6.64
1.70
0.025
24.964
7.79
1.73
VDF
0.719
30.029
4.477
11.53
0.020
29.219
5.120
11.60
0.042
18.658
15.30
11.96
0.071
13.839
29.46
11.86
DDF
0.020
31.696
3.771
26.55
0.020
31.219
3.993
26.79
0.025
26.417
6.71
27.35
0.022
24.943
7.93
27.15
ACWVMF
0.004
36.221
0.769
3.25
0.008
34.769
1.235
3.23
0.016
27.080
5.43
3.19
0.025
25.324
6.93
3.100
ACWVDF
0.015
35.024
0.974
41.45
0.016
32.957
1.606
40.96
0.037
18.705
13.19
38.53
0.063
14.164
26.05
38.15
ACWDDF
0.002
35.116
1.036
53.78
0.005
35.115
1.660
53.95
0.026
25.650
6.62
55.32
0.030
23.874
8.51
54.07
CWVMF
0.009
34.762
2.185
2.08
0.015
33.567
2.461
2.49
0.027
21.536
7.31
2.04
0.034
19.220
9.99
2.03
CWVDF
0.016
33.122
2.931
15.36
0.017
31.727
3.284
15.35
0.052
14.155
22.14
15.42
0.090
10.586
42.66
15.52
CWDDF
0.015
34.769
2.219
38.02
0.016
33.523
2.494
37.84
0.027
21.898
7.21
37.53
0.034
19.689
9.59
37.50
RCVMF
0.009
34.077
2.191
1.77
0.010
33.346
2.417
1.75
0.033
19.960
8.82
1.77
0.047
17.085
13.81
1.74
RCVDF
0.016
32.979
2.709
11.72
0.017
31.978
3.035
11.63
0.045
15.407
18.24
12.33
0.094
10.391
43.85
12.08
RCDDF
0.009
34.058
2.233
27.05
0.016
33.306
2.468
28.20
0.023
25.218
6.01
27.33
0.030
21.591
8.46
27.50
RCTVMF
0.004
36.257
0.791
1.80
0.006
34.576
1.262
1.78
0.033
19.828
8.85
1.77
0.048
16.965
14.00
1.77
RCTVDF
0.015
35.701
0.824
11.52
0.016
33.277
1.451
11.92
0.046
15.157
18.42
11.36
0.086
10.846
40.68
11.27
RCTDDF
0.004
36.306
0.794
26.63
0.016
34.648
1.261
26.52
0.032
19.917
8.84
27.12
0.046
17.159
13.67
26.79
EVMF
0.010
33.409
2.577
11.25
0.008
33.096
2.553
11.25
0.018
27.360
5.76
11.38
0.021
25.430
6.97
11.53
EVDF
0.019
30.509
4.359
16.99
0.019
29.795
4.503
23.86
0.041
17.724
15.55
25.97
0.075
12.575
33.03
24.26
EDDF
0.017
31.861
3.600
43.23
0.018
31.352
3.772
43.02
0.020
26.427
6.69
42.00
0.022
24.968
7.90
43.32
SVMF_RANK
0.005
35.424
1.427
1.71
0.006
33.943
1.598
1.71
0.027
22.316
6.89
1.69
0.037
19.205
10.29
1.69
SVDF_RANK
0.017
32.768
2.714
1.78
0.017
32.267
2.640
11.92
0.038
17.197
14.68
12.06
0.018
11.331
37.57
11.19
SDDF_RANK
0.006
34.982
1.664
26.98
0.006
34.296
1.730
26.84
0.025
23.739
6.37
27.02
0.031
20.807
8.89
26.62
SVMF_MEAN
0.010
32.731
2.702
10.21
0.010
32.475
2.503
10.10
0.022
26.691
5.87
9.42
0.026
24.347
7.40
9.51
SVDF_MEAN
0.017
32.507
2.765
25.49
0.017
31.817
2.571
23.80
0.043
15.955
16.71
26.96
0.086
11.016
39.54
22.49
SDDF_MEAN
0.016
34.855
1.760
30.60
0.016
34.414
1.718
28.98
0.024
24.071
6.31
24.95
0.032
20.864
9.17
24.95
ASVMF_RANK
0.016
33.739
2.166
10.88
0.016
33.459
2.001
10.81
0.022
27.127
5.66
10.68
0.025
24.968
7.11
10.70
ASVDF_RANK
0.013
30.095
4.735
12.37
0.020
29.245
5.124
12.37
0.041
18.898
15.07
13.50
0.071
13.824
29.35
13.40
ASDDF_RANK
0.010
33.191
2.457
37.85
0.016
33.027
2.236
38.35
0.017
27.033
5.86
36.12
0.025
25.369
7.12
35.02
ASVMF_MEAN
0.013
33.645
2.319
9.76
0.010
33.635
2.144
9.56
0.020
27.488
5.72
9.80
0.025
25.683
6.95
9.81
ASVDF_MEAN
0.015
34.481
1.323
22.73
0.017
30.532
1.817
22.52
0.075
13.958
21.95
22.85
0.110
11.785
33.06
23.17
ASDDF_MEAN
0.012
33.675
2.324
24.86
0.010
33.553
2.172
23.31
0.022
27.463
5.79
23.36
0.021
25.572
7.00
26.09
NCVMF
0.020
31.757
3.718
20.09
0.021
31.257
3.958
20.22
0.020
26.683
6.43
19.67
0.026
25.194
7.69
19.56
NCVMF_2C
0.021
31.632
3.753
19.30
0.022
31.184
3.969
19.44
0.023
26.527
6.53
19.29
0.026
24.901
7.77
19.76
NCVMF_1NC
0.022
31.250
3.969
18.91
0.019
30.858
4.173
19.32
0.024
26.524
6.62
19.35
0.024
24.921
7.82
19.34
NCVMF_1C
0.021
31.095
4.032
19.99
0.022
30.733
4.230
18.62
0.019
26.422
6.65
18.39
0.025
24.921
7.83
18.43
PGF
0.005
35.464
0.889
1.01
0.016
33.948
1.407
1.18
0.024
25.339
6.09
2.03
0.028
23.177
7.95
2.22
PGF_FAST
0.013
34.829
1.131
0.44
0.011
33.548
1.608
0.59
0.025
25.192
6.47
1.49
0.031
22.901
8.72
1.58
AVMF
0.006
34.899
1.016
1.84
0.005
33.727
1.498
1.82
0.016
26.856
5.66
1.78
0.021
25.109
7.24
1.76
AVDF
0.015
35.203
0.762
15.32
0.016
32.340
1.475
15.14
0.039
17.492
14.42
15.23
0.071
12.810
30.52
15.01
MCWVMF
0.005
35.522
1.354
1.76
0.006
33.912
1.541
1.71
0.040
18.254
10.71
1.73
0.058
15.762
16.46
1.69
NVMF
0.003
35.170
1.068
2.18
0.006
34.093
1.499
2.23
0.022
27.008
5.54
2.58
0.025
25.194
7.03
2.53
SDM
0.005
34.771
0.872
3.86
0.006
32.649
1.561
3.71
0.058
16.417
19.55
3.63
0.092
13.124
32.34
3.70
MMF
0.013
33.061
3.211
0.23
0.011
31.916
3.455
0.24
0.035
18.556
9.94
0.24
0.044
16.803
12.97
0.24
RSVMF
0.014
33.522
2.428
1.75
0.012
33.149
2.410
1.75
0.022
26.689
5.76
1.70
0.026
24.368
7.20
1.73
FVMF
0.018
32.107
3.697
6.94
0.020
31.633
3.890
6.99
0.027
26.341
7.05
6.96
0.025
24.599
8.75
6.94
FVDF
0.020
31.827
4.217
14.11
0.022
30.559
4.863
14.34
0.074
16.888
28.37
14.13
0.105
13.950
41.29
14.04
FOVMF
0.013
31.303
4.047
7.68
0.013
30.643
4.333
7.64
0.025
23.921
8.95
7.66
0.037
21.640
12.15
7.76
AVMMF
0.017
32.764
2.908
5.03
0.016
32.011
3.207
5.29
0.027
24.770
7.70
5.20
0.034
22.053
10.29
5.17
NCRVMF
0.020
31.729
3.727
2.65
0.019
31.290
3.945
2.96
0.020
26.761
6.49
2.85
0.025
25.200
7.66
2.74
NPSF
0.004
37.315
0.668
5.563
0.005
35.541
1.148
7.475
0.018
27.866
5.154
16.28
0.020
25.931
6.65
17.37
Table 5
Comparison of the filters for the Lena image induced with RVN at 10, 20, 80 and 90% based on NCD, PSNR, MAE and TIME
RVN
RVN
RVN
RVN
.10
.20
.80
.90
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
NCD
PSNR
MAE
TIME
VMF
0.021
31.743
3.73
1.74
0.021
31.283
3.96
1.77
0.031
26.388
6.95
1.76
0.032
25.046
8.25
1.76
VDF
0.013
29.979
4.77
11.59
0.014
29.091
5.18
11.85
0.045
19.612
14.94
11.53
0.066
16.277
23.56
11.43
DDF
0.021
31.709
3.78
27.66
0.021
31.239
4.01
26.59
0.029
26.344
7.01
27.50
0.032
24.826
8.54
27.72
ACWVMF
0.003
36.217
0.75
3.34
0.004
34.641
1.23
3.25
0.017
27.292
5.48
3.18
0.020
25.986
6.78
3.23
ACWVDF
0.002
34.758
0.09
40.13
0.007
32.846
1.59
40.60
0.033
20.535
11.80
39.98
0.053
17.373
18.77
40.90
ACWDDF
0.011
35.562
0.87
55.46
0.003
34.127
1.35
55.46
0.018
26.337
6.11
56.18
0.022
25.147
7.76
56.64
CWVMF
0.009
34.864
2.17
2.08
0.015
33.855
2.43
2.08
0.026
25.471
6.03
2.07
0.024
23.837
7.46
2.07
CWVDF
0.008
32.993
2.94
41.02
0.010
31.669
3.30
40.25
0.034
19.104
13.52
40.62
0.047
16.932
19.01
40.65
CWDDF
0.016
34.820
2.20
37.56
0.009
33.976
2.46
37.37
0.023
25.855
6.00
37.66
0.025
23.940
7.48
37.03
RCVMF
0.010
34.037
2.19
1.75
0.007
33.328
2.42
1.75
0.019
27.637
5.55
1.77
0.021
25.851
6.71
1.75
RCVDF
0.007
33.054
2.70
11.52
0.009
31.870
3.04
11.32
0.029
21.441
10.49
11.79
0.041
18.337
15.88
11.72
RCDDF
0.010
33.997
2.23
26.93
0.011
33.448
2.45
26.59
0.016
28.016
5.48
27.10
0.023
25.983
6.78
26.74
RCTVMF
0.008
35.794
0.91
1.72
0.008
34.389
1.35
1.17
0.015
27.500
5.29
1.70
0.017
25.624
6.70
1.71
RCTVDF
0.003
34.666
1.08
11.39
0.004
32.902
1.65
11.38
0.028
21.401
10.15
11.94
0.041
18.174
16.08
11.37
RCTDDF
0.008
35.700
0.93
28.44
0.008
34.518
1.35
28.36
0.016
27.896
5.20
27.13
0.020
25.823
6.72
27.01
EVMF
0.015
33.482
2.49
11.21
0.015
32.888
2.54
11.24
0.021
27.680
5.76
11.53
0.026
26.132
6.93
11.39
EVDF
0.013
30.287
4.06
25.20
0.018
29.417
4.96
24.64
0.044
19.872
14.25
24.95
0.059
17.052
21.30
24.57
EDDF
0.020
31.685
3.76
44.31
0.012
31.287
3.97
44.59
0.032
26.292
7.14
43.72
0.336
25.092
8.37
43.71
SVMF_RANK
0.003
35.140
1.49
1.73
0.004
34.164
1.66
1.74
0.019
26.442
5.49
1.68
0.021
24.365
6.99
1.70
SVDF_RANK
0.008
32.537
2.86
12.18
0.009
32.010
2.85
11.95
0.030
21.168
11.00
11.48
0.045
17.932
17.25
11.62
SDDF_RANK
0.004
34.882
1.72
27.01
0.006
34.094
1.83
27.10
0.014
27.086
5.49
25.72
0.021
25.180
6.83
25.12
SVMF_MEAN
0.007
32.549
2.86
10.21
0.011
32.370
2.73
10.43
0.020
27.097
6.07
9.50
0.023
25.917
7.12
9.49
SVDF_MEAN
0.090
32.085
2.93
25.30
0.014
31.482
2.80
23.78
0.031
20.524
11.58
22.13
0.049
17.229
18.70
21.85
SDDF_MEAN
0.009
34.724
1.83
30.97
0.009
34.076
1.84
30.34
0.015
27.190
5.53
37.48
0.021
25.274
7.00
39.75
ASVMF_RANK
0.006
33.459
2.30
11.54
0.006
33.124
2.18
11.62
0.021
27.586
5.66
11.29
0.022
26.111
6.80
11.26
ASVDF_RANK
0.013
30.032
4.74
12.24
0.014
29.258
5.13
12.33
0.046
19.775
14.81
12.76
0.061
17.171
21.30
12.81
ASDDF_RANK
0.010
32.880
2.63
39.15
0.010
32.776
2.44
39.72
0.024
27.467
5.90
38.93
0.021
25.764
7.19
38.72
ASVMF_MEAN
0.015
33.374
2.45
10.01
0.007
33.083
2.35
9.84
0.021
27.562
5.16
9.88
0.030
25.970
7.15
9.86
ASVDF_MEAN
0.003
34.651
1.34
23.27
0.006
33.291
1.78
23.24
0.026
21.171
9.57
22.60
0.035
18.701
14.05
22.64
ASDDF_MEAN
0.006
33.356
2.47
24.68
0.011
32.978
2.38
24.54
0.023
27.468
5.97
24.12
0.027
25.998
7.15
24.89
NCVMF
0.020
31.739
3.73
20.07
0.022
31.286
3.96
19.18
0.029
26.421
6.97
19.31
0.031
25.287
8.08
19.26
NCVMF_2C
0.022
31.690
3.75
19.25
0.022
31.209
3.98
19.36
0.028
26.418
6.97
19.73
0.036
24.964
8.25
19.25
NCVMF_1NC
0.023
31.232
3.98
19.49
0.021
30.870
4.19
19.55
0.030
26.342
7.06
19.88
0.029
25.104
8.24
19.46
NCVMF_1C
0.020
31.088
4.04
19.23
0.021
30.698
4.26
19.53
0.030
26.494
6.99
20.21
0.036
25.191
8.26
20.03
PGF
0.003
35.301
0.89
0.99
0.004
33.657
1.43
1.11
0.018
26.321
6.03
1.88
0.023
24.874
7.57
2.01
PGF_FAST
0.013
34.851
1.13
0.42
0.010
33.465
1.62
0.57
0.020
25.673
6.60
1.36
0.025
24.013
8.50
1.51
AVMF
0.002
34.895
1.00
1.83
0.012
33.586
1.49
1.83
0.017
26.824
5.88
1.79
0.023
25.369
7.38
1.73
AVDF
0.013
29.988
4.77
16.13
0.014
29.077
5.19
15.32
0.048
19.264
15.59
15.64
0.057
17.245
21.48
15.57
MCWVMF
0.005
35.393
1.40
1.88
0.004
34.342
1.58
2.03
0.018
26.059
5.55
1.94
0.021
24.014
7.08
1.90
NVMF
0.005
35.219
1.05
2.22
0.004
34.192
1.46
2.28
0.019
27.055
5.49
2.57
0.022
25.300
6.84
2.56
SDM
0.002
34.978
0.84
3.55
0.005
32.543
1.56
3.57
0.028
21.714
10.94
3.48
0.045
18.873
16.13
3.50
MMF
0.013
33.207
3.22
0.23
0.014
32.390
3.44
0.24
0.028
22.850
7.88
0.24
0.035
21.139
9.79
0.25
RSVMF
0.014
33.310
2.54
1.76
0.016
33.010
2.56
1.78
0.022
27.203
5.71
1.75
0.021
26.001
6.95
1.76
FVMF
0.019
32.193
3.68
7.01
0.021
31.732
3.88
7.00
0.032
26.179
7.25
7.98
0.038
24.838
9.04
7.94
FVDF
0.022
31.983
4.16
14.05
0.024
31.170
4.59
14.21
0.060
23.213
12.70
14.10
0.067
21.336
15.95
14.19
FOVMF
0.021
31.484
4.01
7.45
0.022
30.863
4.28
7.49
0.027
24.885
8.38
7.51
0.032
23.124
10.58
.4382
AVMMF
0.009
32.789
2.90
5.14
0.012
32.191
3.17
5.36
0.030
25.889
7.33
6.56
0.026
24.358
8.98
6.78
NCRVMF
0.020
31.794
3.71
2.68
0.022
31.301
3.96
2.69
0.031
26.520
6.91
2.85
0.033
25.101
8.19
2.50
NPSF
0.0016
37.063
0.655
3.95
0.003
35.161
1.147
4.56
0.016
27.748
5.28
9.06
0.0212
26.237
6.65
9.85
Fig. 5
Comparison of some robust filters graphically: a legends depicting the filters in comparison and b–e shows execution time, PSNR, NCD and MAE comparison for fixed valued impulse noise; f–i shows execution time PSNR, NCD and MAE for random valued impulse noise
Comparison of the filters for the Lena image induced with FVN at 10, 20, 80 and 90% based on NCD, PSNR, MAE and TIMEComparison of the filters for the Lena image induced with RVN at 10, 20, 80 and 90% based on NCD, PSNR, MAE and TIMEComparison of some robust filters graphically: a legends depicting the filters in comparison and b–e shows execution time, PSNR, NCD and MAE comparison for fixed valued impulse noise; f–i shows execution time PSNR, NCD and MAE for random valued impulse noiseAfter working on various numbers of images it can be seen that the proposed filter, Noise percentage based switching filter maintains a good PSNR value at lower noise ratio by outperforming robust filters like ACWVMF, ACWVDF, etc. and also definitely overtakes even the most robust filters, which are very efficient in the higher noise ratios, like ACWVMF, EVMF and some vector sigma filters. This is supported by the experimental results shown in the Tables 4 and 5, where the results of some efficient filters in consideration are christened. Figures 6 and 7 show the original images, corrupted images with 90% of fixed valued and random valued impulse noise and filtered images of Tiffany and Tree respectively. The filtered images of the proposed filter are shown in image l of the Figs. 6 and 7, depicting high signal content and detail preservation. But seen precisely the filtered images are little blurred since the noisy pixels are replaced by the output of the average of the exponentially weighted filter. And also the proposed filter can be further improved in terms of preservation of chromaticity by furthering lowering the value of NCD.
Fig. 6
Filtering results for the TIFFANY image corrupted with 90% noise: a original, b 90% noisy, c ASVMF_MEAN, d ASVMF_RANK, e ASDDF_MEAN, f ASDDF_RANK, g VMF, h MCWVMF, i NVMF, j RSVMF, k RCTVMF and l MASVMF
Fig. 7
Filtering results for the TREE image corrupted with 90% noise: a original, b 90% noisy, c ACWDDF, d ACWVDF, e ACWVMF, f AVDF, g AVMF, h EDDF, i EVDF, j EVMF, k FVMF and l MASVMF
Filtering results for the TIFFANY image corrupted with 90% noise: a original, b 90% noisy, c ASVMF_MEAN, d ASVMF_RANK, e ASDDF_MEAN, f ASDDF_RANK, g VMF, h MCWVMF, i NVMF, j RSVMF, k RCTVMF and l MASVMFFiltering results for the TREE image corrupted with 90% noise: a original, b 90% noisy, c ACWDDF, d ACWVDF, e ACWVMF, f AVDF, g AVMF, h EDDF, i EVDF, j EVMF, k FVMF and l MASVMF
Conclusions
The proposed filter is able to outperform the other robust filters, in maintaining the signal content and preserving the fine details of the image corrupted with fixed valued and random valued impulse noise at the lower noise ratios as well as at the higher noise ratios. And the filter also maintains the chromaticity of the filtered image at a lower value of NCD and MAE as compared to some of the very efficient filters in literature. The weighted average output of the filter does not belong to the vectors in the window because of which the filter can be extended further for Gaussian noise and mixed Gaussian and impulse noise removal. Other than this, an unwanted commonly occurring issue called smoothing can be still further minimized. Future work will be in introducing a directional distance factor in the exponential weight function so that the chromaticity maintenance of the image is improved further.