AN EFFICIENT ANALYSIS OF IMAGES BASED ON MULTIPLE THRESHOLDING

DENOISING TECHNIQUES

ABSTRACT

The denoising of digital images degraded by various types of noises is a major problem in
digital image processing. This report presents a new hybrid image denoising method fusing
Adaptive Median Filter, Wavelet Thresholding, Multiscale products Wavelet Thresholding for
image denoising. With the help of nonlinear combination of information of adjacent pixel,
adaptive median filter smoothen the edges and preserve the edge details of the images. In the
first stage, if noisy image is passed through Bilateral Filter(BF) then only some amount of noise
get reduced but the image gives a blurred appearance and it is has a problem with extreme
outliers. Hence to preserve the edge details and reduce the blur effect, we use Adaptive Median
Filter in place of Bilateral Filter, wavelet thresholding and adaptive wavelet thresholding is
applied with the help of multiscale product rule in the next stages. In the second stage, the
adaptive median filter output is passed through the wavelet thresholding method and some
amount of blurring gets reduced. During the third stage, the Dyadic Wavelet Transform is
applied and an adaptive threshold is calculated with the help of multiscale product adaptive
thresholding rule and implemented on the multiscale products rather than on the wavelet
coefficients. While applying the threshold rule, the important features like edges, curves and
textures can be identified. The proposed method helps to preserve the edges while suppressing
the noise. The experimental results prove that the proposed image denoising method is
competitive when compared to other methods in reducing various types of noise. The proposed
method outperforms other methods both visually and in case of objective quality peak-signal-
to-noise ratio (PSNR).

1.1 Objective and Motivation

The need for ecient image restoration methods has grown with the massive production of
digital images and movies of all kinds, often taken in poor conditions. No matter how good
cameras are, an image improvement is always desirable to extend their range of action.

A digital image is generally encoded as a matrix of grayscale or color values. In the case of a
movie, this matrix has three dimensions, the third one corresponding to time. Each pair (i,
X(i)), where X(i) is the value ati, is called a pixel, short for picture element. In the case of
grayscale images, i is a point on a two-dimensional (2D) grid and X(i) is a real value. In the
case of classical color images, X(i) is a triplet of values for the red, green, and blue components.
All of what we shall say applies identically to movies, three-dimensional (3D) images, and
color or multispectral images.

The two main limitations in image accuracy are categorized as blur and noise. Blur is intrinsic
to image acquisition systems, as digital images have a nite number of samples and must satisfy
the ShannonNyquist sampling conditions. The second main image perturbation is noise.

Each one of the pixel values X(i) is the result of a light intensity measurement, usually made
by a charge coupled device (CCD) matrix coupled with a light focusing system. Each captor
of the CCD is roughly a square in which the number of incoming photons is being counted for
a xed period corresponding to the obturation time. When the light source is constant, the
number of photons received by each pixel uctuates around its average in accordance with the
central limit theorem. In other words, one can expect uctuations of order n for an incoming
photons. In addition, each captor, if not adequately cooled, receives heat photons. This
perturbation is usually called obscurity noise. In a rst rough approximation one can write

Y(i) = X(i) +N(i)

where i I, Y(i) is the observed value, X(i) would be the true value at pixel i, namely, the
one which would be observed by averaging the photon counting on a long period of time, and
N(i) is the noise perturbation. As indicated, the amount of noise is signal-dependent; that is,
N(i) is larger when X(i) is larger. In noise models, the normalized values of N(i) and N(j) at
dierent pixels are assumed to be independent random variables, and one talks about white
noise. So our main motivation of this dissertation to reduce the noise and blur of the image.

1.2 Problem Domain

Digital cameras produce three common types of noise: random noise, fixed pattern noise, and
banding noise. The three qualitative examples below show pronounced and isolating cases for
each type of noise against an ordinarily smooth grey background. Random noise is
characterized by intensity and color fluctuations above and below the actual image intensity.
There will always be some random noise at any exposure length and it is most influenced by
ISO speed. The pattern of random noise changes even if the exposure settings are identical.

Fixed pattern noise includes which are called hot pixels, are defined as such when a pixel's
intensity far surpasses that of the ambient random noise fluctuations. Fixed pattern noise
generally appears in very long exposures and is exacerbated by higher temperatures. Fixed
pattern noise is unique in that it will show almost the same distribution of hot pixels if taken
under the same conditions (temperature, length of exposure, ISO speed).Banding noise is
highly camera-dependent, and is noise which is introduced by the camera when it reads data
from the digital sensor. Banding noise is most visible at high ISO speeds and in the shadows,
or when an image has been excessively brightened. Banding noise can also increase for certain
white balances, depending on camera model.Although fixed pattern noise appears more
objectionable, it is usually easier to remove since it is repeatable. A camera's internal
electronics just has to know the pattern and it can subtract this noise away to reveal the true
image. Fixed pattern noise is much less of a problem than random noise in the latest generation
of digital cameras, however even the slightest amount can be more distracting than random
noise.

The less objectionable random noise is usually much more difficult to remove without
degrading the image. Computers have a difficult time discerning random noise from fine
texture patterns such as those occurring in dirt or foliage, so if you remove the random noise
you often end up removing these textures as well. Programs such as Neat Image and Noise
Ninja can be remarkably good at reducing noise while still retaining actual image information.

Knowledge about the problem domain is coded into the image processing system in the form
of knowledge database. This knowledge is as simple as describing the regions of the image
where the information of the interest is located. Each module will interact with the knowledge
base to decide about the appropriate technique for the right application. For example, if the
acquired image contains spike-like noise the preprocessing module interacts with the
knowledge base to select an appropriate smoothing filter-like median filter to remove the noise.

After studying different approaches we observe that we can work with the reduction of noise
and SNR. There is also some scope for the reducing the time of denoising while unaffected the
accuracy. There are several approaches for noise free image retrieval but still there are lot of
scope in the direction of reduction.so that better image will be retrieved. If we analyze the
research work in [14] and [15] they do not achieve good results in the case of noise parameters,
they do not detect any Blur + Noise combination when they consider the noise parameters, it
can be recovered by Thresholding Techniques for Image Denoising. The noise is also bit higher
which can be reduces with blur and noise parameters with different noise parameters and
conditions.

1.3 Scope

After studying and analyzing several research works in the direction of image denoising, we
can suggest some following points which can be improved or there is the need of betterment in
the field of image denoising. The points are following:
1. Reduction of Noise with different noise parameters.
2. Need of reducing Blur
3. Reduction of time of denoising while unaffected the accuracy.
4. Betterment in SNR and PSNR.
5. Image reconstruction is also in less time with high quality accessibility.

1.9 Contribution of Thesis

Images are a natural way for humans to think about spatial information, and digital images are
a natural representation of spatial data. Like all recorded signals, digital images are often
corrupted by noise, increasing the difficulty with which human observers or computer
algorithms are able to extract the useful underlying information. Although noise can be
mitigated by improved image acquisition hardware, in some modalities, such as coherent
imaging, the noise is an inherent part of the imaging process.
However, information content may be preserved even at high noise levels. With some effort,
one can still discern the structural details in the presence of noise. Thus, the goal of noise
filtering, or image denoising, is to exploit the available information in the observed image to
obtain an estimate of the noise-free signal.