Exact Histogram Specification Optimized for Structural Similarity

An exact histogram specification (EHS) method modifies its input image to have a specified histogram. Applications of EHS include image (contrast) enhancement (e.g., by histogram equalization) and histogram watermarking. Performing EHS on an image, however, reduces its visual quality. Starting from the output of a generic EHS method, we maximize the structural similarity index (SSIM) between the original image (before EHS) and the result of EHS iteratively. Essential in this process is the computationally simple and accurate formula we derive for SSIM gradient. As it is based on gradient ascent, the proposed EHS always converges. Experimental results confirm that while obtaining the histogram exactly as specified, the proposed method invariably outperforms the existing methods in terms of visual quality of the result. The computational complexity of the proposed method is shown to be of the same order as that of the existing methods. Index terms: histogram modification, histogram equalization, optimization for perceptual visual quality, structural similarity gradient ascent, histogram watermarking, contrast enhancement

A Convex Model for Edge-Histogram Specification with Applications to Edge-preserving Smoothing

The goal of edge-histogram specification is to find an image whose edge image has a histogram that matches a given edge-histogram as much as possible. Mignotte has proposed a non-convex model for the problem [M. Mignotte. An energy-based model for the image edge-histogram specification problem. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, 21(1):379--386, 2012]. In his work, edge magnitudes of an input image are first modified by histogram specification to match the given edge-histogram. Then, a non-convex model is minimized to find an output image whose edge-histogram matches the modified edge-histogram. The non-convexity of the model hinders the computations and the inclusion of useful constraints such as the dynamic range constraint. In this paper, instead of considering edge magnitudes, we directly consider the image gradients and propose a convex model based on them. Furthermore, we include additional constraints in our model based on different applications. The convexity of our model allows us to compute the output image efficiently using either Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers or Fast Iterative Shrinkage-Thresholding Algorithm. We consider several applications in edge-preserving smoothing including image abstraction, edge extraction, details exaggeration, and documents scan-through removal. Numerical results are given to illustrate that our method successfully produces decent results efficiently

Thermostat-assisted continuously-tempered Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for Bayesian learning

We propose a new sampling method, the thermostat-assisted continuously-tempered Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, for Bayesian learning on large datasets and multimodal distributions. It simulates the Nos\'e-Hoover dynamics of a continuously-tempered Hamiltonian system built on the distribution of interest. A significant advantage of this method is that it is not only able to efficiently draw representative i.i.d. samples when the distribution contains multiple isolated modes, but capable of adaptively neutralising the noise arising from mini-batches and maintaining accurate sampling. While the properties of this method have been studied using synthetic distributions, experiments on three real datasets also demonstrated the gain of performance over several strong baselines with various types of neural networks plunged in

Multiscale Astronomical Image Processing Based on Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations

Astronomical applications of recent advances in the field of nonastronomical image processing are presented. These innovative methods, applied to multiscale astronomical images, increase signal-to-noise ratio, do not smear point sources or extended diffuse structures, and are thus a highly useful preliminary step for detection of different features including point sources, smoothing of clumpy data, and removal of contaminants from background maps. We show how the new methods, combined with other algorithms of image processing, unveil fine diffuse structures while at the same time enhance detection of localized objects, thus facilitating interactive morphology studies and paving the way for the automated recognition and classification of different features. We have also developed a new application framework for astronomical image processing that implements some recent advances made in computer vision and modern image processing, along with original algorithms based on nonlinear partial differential equations. The framework enables the user to easily set up and customize an image-processing pipeline interactively; it has various common and new visualization features and provides access to many astronomy data archives. Altogether, the results presented here demonstrate the first implementation of a novel synergistic approach based on integration of image processing, image visualization, and image quality assessment

Interpretation of van der Waals density functionals

The nonlocal correlation energy in the van der Waals density functional (vdW-DF) method [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 246401 (2004); Phys. Rev. B 76, 125112 (2007); Phys. Rev. B 89, 035412 (2014)] can be interpreted in terms of a coupling of zero-point energies of characteristic modes of semilocal exchange-correlation (xc) holes. These xc holes reflect the internal functional in the framework of the vdW-DF method [Phys. Rev. B 82, 081101(2010)]. We explore the internal xc hole components, showing that they share properties with those of the generalized-gradient approximation. We use these results to illustrate the nonlocality in the vdW-DF description and analyze the vdW-DF formulation of nonlocal correlation.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures. Submited to Physical Review

Quality Adaptive Least Squares Trained Filters for Video Compression Artifacts Removal Using a No-reference Block Visibility Metric

Compression artifacts removal is a challenging problem because videos can be compressed at different qualities. In this paper, a least squares approach that is self-adaptive to the visual quality of the input sequence is proposed. For compression artifacts, the visual quality of an image is measured by a no-reference block visibility metric. According to the blockiness visibility of an input image, an appropriate set of filter coefficients that are trained beforehand is selected for optimally removing coding artifacts and reconstructing object details. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on a variety of sequences compressed at different qualities in comparison to several other deblocking techniques. The proposed method outperforms the others significantly both objectively and subjectively