Denoising using projections onto the epigraph set of convex cost functions

A new denoising algorithm based on orthogonal projections onto the epigraph set of a convex cost function is presented. In this algorithm, the dimension of the minimization problem is lifted by one and feasibility sets corresponding to the cost function using the epigraph concept are defined. As the utilized cost function is a convex function in RN, the corresponding epigraph set is also a convex set in RN+1. The denoising algorithm starts with an arbitrary initial estimate in RN+1. At each step of the iterative denoising, an orthogonal projection is performed onto one of the constraint sets associated with the cost function in a sequential manner. The method provides globally optimal solutions for total-variation, ℓ1, ℓ2, and entropic cost functions.1 © 2014 IEEE

Image restoration and reconstruction using projections onto epigraph set of convex cost fuchtions

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This thesis focuses on image restoration and reconstruction problems. These inverse problems are solved using a convex optimization algorithm based on orthogonal Projections onto the Epigraph Set of a Convex Cost functions (PESC). In order to solve the convex minimization problem, the dimension of the problem is lifted by one and then using the epigraph concept the feasibility sets corresponding to the cost function are defined. Since the cost function is a convex function in R N , the corresponding epigraph set is also a convex set in R N+1. The convex optimization algorithm starts with an arbitrary initial estimate in R N+1 and at each step of the iterative algorithm, an orthogonal projection is performed onto one of the constraint sets associated with the cost function in a sequential manner. The PESC algorithm provides globally optimal solutions for different functions such as total variation, `1-norm, `2-norm, and entropic cost functions. Denoising, deconvolution and compressive sensing are among the applications of PESC algorithm. The Projection onto Epigraph Set of Total Variation function (PES-TV) is used in 2-D applications and for 1-D applications Projection onto Epigraph Set of `1-norm cost function (PES-`1) is utilized. In PES-`1 algorithm, first the observation signal is decomposed using wavelet or pyramidal decomposition. Both wavelet denoising and denoising methods using the concept of sparsity are based on soft-thresholding. In sparsity-based denoising methods, it is assumed that the original signal is sparse in some transform domain such as Fourier, DCT, and/or wavelet domain and transform domain coefficients of the noisy signal are soft-thresholded to reduce noise. Here, the relationship between the standard soft-thresholding based denoising methods and sparsity-based wavelet denoising methods is described. A deterministic soft-threshold estimation method using the epigraph set of `1-norm cost function is presented. It is demonstrated that the size of the `1-ball can be determined using linear algebra. The size of the `1-ball in turn determines the soft-threshold. The PESC, PES-TV and PES-`1 algorithms, are described in detail in this thesis. Extensive simulation results are presented. PESC based inverse restoration and reconstruction algorithm is compared to the state of the art methods in the literature.Tofighi, MohammadM.S

Phase and TV Based Convex Sets for Blind Deconvolution of Microscopic Images

In this article, two closed and convex sets for blind deconvolution problem are proposed. Most blurring functions in microscopy are symmetric with respect to the origin. Therefore, they do not modify the phase of the Fourier transform (FT) of the original image. As a result blurred image and the original image have the same FT phase. Therefore, the set of images with a prescribed FT phase can be used as a constraint set in blind deconvolution problems. Another convex set that can be used during the image reconstruction process is the epigraph set of Total Variation (TV) function. This set does not need a prescribed upper bound on the total variation of the image. The upper bound is automatically adjusted according to the current image of the restoration process. Both of these two closed and convex sets can be used as a part of any blind deconvolution algorithm. Simulation examples are presented.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Selected Topics in Signal Processin

A Non-Local Structure Tensor Based Approach for Multicomponent Image Recovery Problems

Non-Local Total Variation (NLTV) has emerged as a useful tool in variational methods for image recovery problems. In this paper, we extend the NLTV-based regularization to multicomponent images by taking advantage of the Structure Tensor (ST) resulting from the gradient of a multicomponent image. The proposed approach allows us to penalize the non-local variations, jointly for the different components, through various $\ell_{1,p}$ matrix norms with $p \ge 1$. To facilitate the choice of the hyper-parameters, we adopt a constrained convex optimization approach in which we minimize the data fidelity term subject to a constraint involving the ST-NLTV regularization. The resulting convex optimization problem is solved with a novel epigraphical projection method. This formulation can be efficiently implemented thanks to the flexibility offered by recent primal-dual proximal algorithms. Experiments are carried out for multispectral and hyperspectral images. The results demonstrate the interest of introducing a non-local structure tensor regularization and show that the proposed approach leads to significant improvements in terms of convergence speed over current state-of-the-art methods

Sublabel-Accurate Relaxation of Nonconvex Energies

We propose a novel spatially continuous framework for convex relaxations based on functional lifting. Our method can be interpreted as a sublabel-accurate solution to multilabel problems. We show that previously proposed functional lifting methods optimize an energy which is linear between two labels and hence require (often infinitely) many labels for a faithful approximation. In contrast, the proposed formulation is based on a piecewise convex approximation and therefore needs far fewer labels. In comparison to recent MRF-based approaches, our method is formulated in a spatially continuous setting and shows less grid bias. Moreover, in a local sense, our formulation is the tightest possible convex relaxation. It is easy to implement and allows an efficient primal-dual optimization on GPUs. We show the effectiveness of our approach on several computer vision problems

Templates for Convex Cone Problems with Applications to Sparse Signal Recovery

This paper develops a general framework for solving a variety of convex cone problems that frequently arise in signal processing, machine learning, statistics, and other fields. The approach works as follows: first, determine a conic formulation of the problem; second, determine its dual; third, apply smoothing; and fourth, solve using an optimal first-order method. A merit of this approach is its flexibility: for example, all compressed sensing problems can be solved via this approach. These include models with objective functionals such as the total-variation norm, ||Wx||_1 where W is arbitrary, or a combination thereof. In addition, the paper also introduces a number of technical contributions such as a novel continuation scheme, a novel approach for controlling the step size, and some new results showing that the smooth and unsmoothed problems are sometimes formally equivalent. Combined with our framework, these lead to novel, stable and computationally efficient algorithms. For instance, our general implementation is competitive with state-of-the-art methods for solving intensively studied problems such as the LASSO. Further, numerical experiments show that one can solve the Dantzig selector problem, for which no efficient large-scale solvers exist, in a few hundred iterations. Finally, the paper is accompanied with a software release. This software is not a single, monolithic solver; rather, it is a suite of programs and routines designed to serve as building blocks for constructing complete algorithms.Comment: The TFOCS software is available at http://tfocs.stanford.edu This version has updated reference