Frequency Domain Filtering (Chapter 4)

CS474/674 - Prof. Bebis

 Frequency Domain Methods

Spatial Domain Frequency Domain

 Major filter categories

• Typically, filters are classified by examining their

properties in the frequency domain:

(1) Low-pass
(2) High-pass
(3) Band-pass
(4) Band-stop
Example

Original signal

Low-pass filtered

High-pass filtered

Band-pass filtered

Band-stop filtered
 Low-pass filters
(i.e., smoothing filters)
• Preserve low frequencies - useful for noise suppression

frequency domain time domain

Example:
 High-pass filters
(i.e., sharpening filters)
• Preserves high frequencies - useful for edge detection

time
domain
frequency
domain

Example:
 Band-pass filters

• Preserves frequencies within a certain band

frequency time
domain domain

Example:
 Band-stop filters

• How do they look like?

Band-pass Band-stop
 Frequency Domain Methods

(real)

Case 1: H(u,v) is specified in

the frequency domain.

Case 2: h(x,y) is specified in

the spatial domain.
Frequency domain filtering: steps

F(u,v) = R(u,v) + jI(u,v)

Frequency domain filtering: steps (cont’d)
(Case 1)

G(u,v)= F(u,v)H(u,v) = H(u,v) R(u,v) + jH(u,v)I(u,v)

 Example

f(x,y) fp(x,y) fp(x,y)(-1)x+y

F(u,v)
H(u,v) - centered G(u,v)=F(u,v)H(u,v)

gp(x,y) g(x,y)
(Case 2) h(x,y) specified in spatial domain

• If h(x,y) is given in the spatial domain,

we can generate H(u,v) as follows:

1.Form hp(x,y) by padding with zeroes.

2. Multiply by (-1)x+y to center its spectrum.

3. Compute its DFT to obtain H(u,v)

Recall these properties:

 Example: h(x,y) is specified in the spatial domain

600 x 600 Example: 6 x 6

g(x,y)= -g(6-x,6-y)

0 0 0 0 0 0
frequency
time 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 -1 0 1 0
Sobel 0 0 -2 0 2 0
0 0 -1 0 1 0
0 0 0 0 0 0
frequency 602 x 602

Warning: need to preserve odd symmetry when padding with zeroes 

H(u,v) should be imaginary and odd (read details on pages 241 and 268)
 Results of Filtering in the
Spatial and Frequency Domains
spatial domain frequency domain
filtering filtering
 Low Pass (LP) Filters

• Ideal low-pass filter (ILPF)

• Butterworth low-pass filter (BLPF)
• Gaussian low-pass filter (GLPF)
 Low-pass (LP) filtering

• Preserves low frequencies, attenuates high frequencies.

Ideal
In practice

D0: cut-off frequency

 Lowpass (LP) filtering (cont’d)

• In 2D, the cutoff frequencies are specified by a circle.

Ideal
 Specifying a 2D low-pass filter
• Specify cutoff frequencies by specifying the radius of a circle
centered at point (N/2, N/2) in the frequency domain.
• The radius is chosen by specifying the percentage of total
power enclosed by the circle.
Specifying a 2D low-pass filter (cont’d)
• Typically, most frequencies are concentrated around the
center of the spectrum.
original r=8 (90% power) r=18 (93% power)

r: radius
r=43 (95%) r=78 (99%) r=152 (99.5%)
 How does D0 control smoothing?

• Reminder: multiplication in the frequency domain implies

convolution in the time domain
time domain freq. domain

sinc

*
=
 How does D0 control smoothing? (cont’d)
• D0 controls the amount of blurring
r=78 (99%)

r=8 (90%)
 Ringing Effect

• Sharp cutoff frequencies produce

an overshoot of image features
whose frequency is close to the
cutoff frequencies (ringing
effect).

h=f*g
 Butterworth LP filter (BLPF)

• In practice, we use filters that attenuate high frequencies

smoothly (e.g., Butterworth LP filter)  less ringing effect

n=1 n=4 n=16

 Spatial Representation of BLPFs
n=1 n=2 n=5 n=20
 Comparison: Ideal LP and BLPF
ILPF BLPF

D0=10, 30,
60, 160,
460
D0=10, 30,
60, 160, n=2
460
 Gaussian LP filter (GLPF)
Gaussian Lowpass Filters (GLPF) in two dimensions is given
 ( u 2  v2 )/2 2
H (u, v)  e

By letting   D0
 ( u 2  v2 )/2 D02
H (u, v)  e
Gaussian: Frequency – Spatial Domains

Let H(u) denote the 1-D frequency domain Gaussian filter

-u 2 /2 2
H (u)  Ae

The corresponding filter in the spatial domain

2 2 2 x2
h( x)  2 Ae

spatial
frequency domain
domain
Example: smoothing by GLPF (1)
 Examples of smoothing by GLPF (2)

D0=100
D0=80
1/16/2018 30
 High Pass (LP) Filters

• Ideal high-pass filter (IHPF)

• Butterworth high-pass filter (BHPF)
• Gaussian high-pass filter (GHPF)
• Difference of Gaussians
• Unsharp Masking and High Boost filtering
 High-pass filtering

• Preserves high frequencies, attenuates low frequencies.

H(u)
 High-Pass filtering (cont’d)

• A high-pass filter can be obtained from a low-pass filter as

follows:

H HP (u, v)  1  H LP (u, v)

=1-
D0
 Butterworth high pass filter (BHPF)
• In practice, we use filters that attenuate low frequencies
smoothly (e.g., Butterworth HP filter)  less ringing
effect
Spatial Representation of High-pass Filters
IHPF BHPF GHPF
 Comparison: IHPF and BHPF

IHPF D0=30,60,160

D0=30,60,160

BHPF n=2
 Gaussian HP filter
A 2-D Gaussian highpass filter (GHPL) is defined as
 ( u 2  v 2 )/2 D02
H (u, v)  1  e

GHPF

BHPF
 Comparison: BHPF and GHPF

BHPF D0=30,60,160
n=2

D0=30,60,160
GHPF
Example: High-pass Filtering and Thresholding
for Fingerprint Image Enhancement

BHPF
(order 4 with a cutoff
frequency 50)
 Difference of Gaussians (DoG) filter

Let H (u ) denote the difference of Gaussian filter

-u 2 /212 -u 2 /2 22
H (u)  Ae  Be
with A  B and  1   2

The corresponding filter in the spatial domain

2 212 x2 2 2 22 x2
h( x)  21 Ae  2 2 Ae

This is a high-pass filter!

 Unsharp Masking and Highboost Filtering
(revisited)

Unsharp Masking: gmask ( x, y)  f ( x, y)  f LP ( x, y)

Highboost filtering: g ( x, y )  f ( x, y )  kgmask ( x, y )  f ( x, y )  k ( f ( x, y)  f LP ( x, y ))

(textbook’s formulation)  f ( x, y )  kfHP ( x, y )

Previous definition: g ( x, y)  ( A 1) f ( x, y)  f HP ( x, y)

 Revisit: Unsharp Masking and
Highboost Filtering
g ( x, y)  f ( x, y)  kgmask ( x, y)  f ( x, y)  k ( f ( x, y)  f LP ( x, y))

FT

G (u, v)  F{ f ( x, y )  k ( f ( x, y )  f LP ( x, y ))}
 F (u, v)  k ( F (u, v)  H LP (u, v) F (u, v)) 
 [1  k (1  H LP (u, v))]F (u, v)  [1  kH HP (u, v)]F (u, v)

1
Highboost Filter
so : g ( x, y )  F {[1  kH HP (u, v)]F (u, v)}
 Highboost and High-Frequency-Emphasis Filters

g ( x, y )  F 1 ((1  kH HP (u , v)) F (u , v)) g ( x, y )  F 1 (( k1  k2 H HP (u, v)) F (u, v))

k 0 k1  0, k2  0

1+k k1+k2

1 k1
High-emphasis
Highboost
 Example

GHPF
D0=40

High-emphasis High-emphasis
and hist. equal.
High-Frequency
Emphasis filtering
Using Gaussian filter
k1=0.5, k2=0.75
 Homomorphic filtering
• Many times, we want to remove shading effects from an
image (i.e., due to uneven illumination)
– Enhance high frequencies
– Attenuate low frequencies but preserve fine detail.
 Homomorphic Filtering (cont’d)

• Consider the following model of image formation:

i(x,y): illumination
r(x,y): reflection

• In general, the illumination component i(x,y) varies slowly

and affects low frequencies mostly.
• In general, the reflection component r(x,y) varies faster
and affects high frequencies mostly.

IDEA: separate low frequencies due to i(x,y)

from high frequencies due to r(x,y)
How are frequencies mixed together?
• Low and high frequencies from i(x,y) and r(x,y)
are mixed together.

F (u, v)  I (u, v) * R(u, v)

• When applying filtering, it is difficult to handle

low/high frequencies separately.

F (u, v) H (u, v)  [ I (u, v)* R(u, v)]H (u, v)

 Can we separate them?

• Idea:
Take the ln( ) of
 Steps of Homomorphic Filtering

(1) Take

(2) Apply FT:

or

(3) Apply H(u,v)

Steps of Homomorphic Filtering (cont’d)

(4) Take Inverse FT:

or

(5) Take exp( ) or g ( x, y)  i0 ( x, y)r0 ( x, y)

Example using high-frequency emphasis

H (u, v)  ( H   L ) 1  e  
 c ( u 2  v2 )/ D02 
 
  L

Attenuate the contribution

made by illumination and
amplify the contribution made
by reflectance
Homomorphic Filtering: Example
Homomorphic Filtering: Example

 L  0.25
H  2
c 1
D0  80