Ridgelets and the representation of mutilated Sobolev functions

We show that ridgelets, a system introduced in [E. J. Candes, Appl. Comput. Harmon. Anal., 6(1999), pp. 197–218], are optimal to represent smooth multivariate functions that may exhibit linear singularities. For instance, let {u · x − b > 0} be an arbitrary hyperplane and consider the singular function f(x) = 1{u·x−b>0}g(x), where g is compactly supported with finite Sobolev L2 norm ||g||Hs, s > 0. The ridgelet coefficient sequence of such an object is as sparse as if f were without singularity, allowing optimal partial reconstructions. For instance, the n-term approximation obtained by keeping the terms corresponding to the n largest coefficients in the ridgelet series achieves a rate of approximation of order n−s/d; the presence of the singularity does not spoil the quality of the ridgelet approximation. This is unlike all systems currently in use, especially Fourier or wavelet representations

Multiresolution analysis using wavelet, ridgelet, and curvelet transforms for medical image segmentation

Copyright @ 2011 Shadi AlZubi et al. This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.The experimental study presented in this paper is aimed at the development of an automatic image segmentation system for classifying region of interest (ROI) in medical images which are obtained from different medical scanners such as PET, CT, or MRI. Multiresolution analysis (MRA) using wavelet, ridgelet, and curvelet transforms has been used in the proposed segmentation system. It is particularly a challenging task to classify cancers in human organs in scanners output using shape or gray-level information; organs shape changes throw different slices in medical stack and the gray-level intensity overlap in soft tissues. Curvelet transform is a new extension of wavelet and ridgelet transforms which aims to deal with interesting phenomena occurring along curves. Curvelet transforms has been tested on medical data sets, and results are compared with those obtained from the other transforms. Tests indicate that using curvelet significantly improves the classification of abnormal tissues in the scans and reduce the surrounding noise

The curvelet transform for image denoising

We describe approximate digital implementations of two new mathematical transforms, namely, the ridgelet transform and the curvelet transform. Our implementations offer exact reconstruction, stability against perturbations, ease of implementation, and low computational complexity. A central tool is Fourier-domain computation of an approximate digital Radon transform. We introduce a very simple interpolation in the Fourier space which takes Cartesian samples and yields samples on a rectopolar grid, which is a pseudo-polar sampling set based on a concentric squares geometry. Despite the crudeness of our interpolation, the visual performance is surprisingly good. Our ridgelet transform applies to the Radon transform a special overcomplete wavelet pyramid whose wavelets have compact support in the frequency domain. Our curvelet transform uses our ridgelet transform as a component step, and implements curvelet subbands using a filter bank of a` trous wavelet filters. Our philosophy throughout is that transforms should be overcomplete, rather than critically sampled. We apply these digital transforms to the denoising of some standard images embedded in white noise. In the tests reported here, simple thresholding of the curvelet coefficients is very competitive with "state of the art" techniques based on wavelets, including thresholding of decimated or undecimated wavelet transforms and also including tree-based Bayesian posterior mean methods. Moreover, the curvelet reconstructions exhibit higher perceptual quality than wavelet-based reconstructions, offering visually sharper images and, in particular, higher quality recovery of edges and of faint linear and curvilinear features. Existing theory for curvelet and ridgelet transforms suggests that these new approaches can outperform wavelet methods in certain image reconstruction problems. The empirical results reported here are in encouraging agreement

Tight Frames of k-Plane Ridgelets and the Problem of Representing Objects Which Are Smooth Away from d-Dimensional Singularities in R^n

For each pair (n, k) with 1 # k < n, we construct a tight frame (# # : # # #) for L 2 (R n ), which we call a frame of k-plane ridgelets. The intent is to efficiently represent functions which are smooth away from singularities along k-planes in R n . We also develop tools to help decide whether in fact k-plane ridgelets provide the desired efficient representation. We first construct a wavelet-like tight frame on the X-ray bundle X n,k -- the fiber bundle having the Grassman manifold G n,k of k-planes in R n for base space, and for fibers the orthocomplements of those planes. This wavelet-like tight frame is the pushout to X n,k , via the smooth local coordinates of G n,k , of an orthonormal basis of tensor Meyer wavelets on Euclidea..

Curvelets and Ridgelets

International audienceDespite the fact that wavelets have had a wide impact in image processing, they fail to efficiently represent objects with highly anisotropic elements such as lines or curvilinear structures (e.g. edges). The reason is that wavelets are non-geometrical and do not exploit the regularity of the edge curve. The Ridgelet and the Curvelet [3, 4] transforms were developed as an answer to the weakness of the separable wavelet transform in sparsely representing what appears to be simple building atoms in an image, that is lines, curves and edges. Curvelets and ridgelets take the form of basis elements which exhibit high directional sensitivity and are highly anisotropic [5, 6, 7, 8]. These very recent geometric image representations are built upon ideas of multiscale analysis and geometry. They have had an important success in a wide range of image processing applications including denoising [8, 9, 10], deconvolution [11, 12], contrast enhancement [13], texture analysis [14, 15], detection [16], watermarking [17], component separation [18], inpainting [19, 20] or blind source separation[21, 22]. Curvelets have also proven useful in diverse fields beyond the traditional image processing application. Let’s cite for example seismic imaging [10, 23, 24], astronomical imaging [25, 26, 27], scientific computing and analysis of partial differential equations [28, 29]. Another reason for the success of ridgelets and curvelets is the availability of fast transform algorithms which are available in non-commercial software packages following the philosophy of reproducible research, see [30, 31]

Recovering edges in ill-posed inverse problems: optimality of curvelet frames

We consider a model problem of recovering a function $f(x_1,x_2)$ from noisy Radon data. The function $f$ to be recovered is assumed smooth apart from a discontinuity along a $C^2$ curve, that is, an edge. We use the continuum white-noise model, with noise level $\varepsilon$. Traditional linear methods for solving such inverse problems behave poorly in the presence of edges. Qualitatively, the reconstructions are blurred near the edges; quantitatively, they give in our model mean squared errors (MSEs) that tend to zero with noise level $\varepsilon$ only as $O(\varepsilon^{1/2})$ as $\varepsilon\to 0$. A recent innovation--nonlinear shrinkage in the wavelet domain--visually improves edge sharpness and improves MSE convergence to $O(\varepsilon^{2/3})$. However, as we show here, this rate is not optimal. In fact, essentially optimal performance is obtained by deploying the recently-introduced tight frames of curvelets in this setting. Curvelets are smooth, highly anisotropic elements ideally suited for detecting and synthesizing curved edges. To deploy them in the Radon setting, we construct a curvelet-based biorthogonal decomposition of the Radon operator and build "curvelet shrinkage" estimators based on thresholding of the noisy curvelet coefficients. In effect, the estimator detects edges at certain locations and orientations in the Radon domain and automatically synthesizes edges at corresponding locations and directions in the original domain. We prove that the curvelet shrinkage can be tuned so that the estimator will attain, within logarithmic factors, the MSE $O(\varepsilon^{4/5})$ as noise level $\varepsilon\to 0$. This rate of convergence holds uniformly over a class of functions which are $C^2$ except for discontinuities along $C^2$ curves, and (except for log terms) is the minimax rate for that class. Our approach is an instance of a general strategy which should apply in other inverse problems; we sketch a deconvolution example

Directional edge and texture representations for image processing

An efficient representation for natural images is of fundamental importance in image processing and analysis. The commonly used separable transforms such as wavelets axe not best suited for images due to their inability to exploit directional regularities such as edges and oriented textural patterns; while most of the recently proposed directional schemes cannot represent these two types of features in a unified transform. This thesis focuses on the development of directional representations for images which can capture both edges and textures in a multiresolution manner. The thesis first considers the problem of extracting linear features with the multiresolution Fourier transform (MFT). Based on a previous MFT-based linear feature model, the work extends the extraction method into the situation when the image is corrupted by noise. The problem is tackled by the combination of a "Signal+Noise" frequency model, a refinement stage and a robust classification scheme. As a result, the MFT is able to perform linear feature analysis on noisy images on which previous methods failed. A new set of transforms called the multiscale polar cosine transforms (MPCT) are also proposed in order to represent textures. The MPCT can be regarded as real-valued MFT with similar basis functions of oriented sinusoids. It is shown that the transform can represent textural patches more efficiently than the conventional Fourier basis. With a directional best cosine basis, the MPCT packet (MPCPT) is shown to be an efficient representation for edges and textures, despite its high computational burden. The problem of representing edges and textures in a fixed transform with less complexity is then considered. This is achieved by applying a Gaussian frequency filter, which matches the disperson of the magnitude spectrum, on the local MFT coefficients. This is particularly effective in denoising natural images, due to its ability to preserve both types of feature. Further improvements can be made by employing the information given by the linear feature extraction process in the filter's configuration. The denoising results compare favourably against other state-of-the-art directional representations

Ridgelet-type Frame Decompositions for Sobolev Spaces related to Linear Transport

In this paper we study stability properties of ridgelet and curvelet frames for mixed-smoothness Sobolev spaces with norm $\|f\|_{s} = \|f\|_{L_{2}(\mathbb{R}^{d})} +\|s\cdot\nabla f\|_{L_{2}(\mathbb{R}^{d})}$ . Here $s \in\mathbb{S}^{d-1}$ is a transport direction and ∇ denotes the gradient of f. Such spaces arise as domains of linear, first order transport equations. The main result of this paper is that ridgelet frames are stable in ∥⋅∥ s regardless of s, while curvelet frames are not. To show the second statement we explicitly construct functions f,g whose curvelet coefficients have all the same modulus but ∥f∥ s <∞ and ∥g∥ s =

The finite ridgelet transform for image representation

The ridgelet transform (Candès and Donoho, 1999) was introduced as a sparse expansion for functions on continuous spaces that are smooth away from discontinuities along lines. In this paper, we propose an or- thonormal version of the ridgelet transform for discrete and fi- nite-size images. Our construction uses the finite Radon transform (FRAT) (Bolker, 1987:Matùs and Flusser, 1993) as a building block. To overcome the periodiza- tion effect of a finite transform, we introduce a novel ordering of the FRAT coefficients. We also analyze the FRAT as a frame operator and derive the exact frame bounds. The resulting finite ridgelet transform (FRIT) is invertible, nonredundant and computed via fast algorithms. Furthermore, this construction leads to a family of directional and orthonormal bases for images. Numerical results show that the FRIT is more effective than the wavelet transform in approximating and denoising images with straight edges