Three-dimensional block matching using orthonormal tree-structured haar transform for multichannel images

Multichannel images, i.e., images of the same object or scene taken in different spectral bands or with different imaging modalities/settings, are common in many applications. For example, multispectral images contain several wavelength bands and hence, have richer information than color images. Multichannel magnetic resonance imaging and multichannel computed tomography images are common in medical imaging diagnostics, and multimodal images are also routinely used in art investigation. All the methods for grayscale images can be applied to multichannel images by processing each channel/band separately. However, it requires vast computational time, especially for the task of searching for overlapping patches similar to a given query patch. To address this problem, we propose a three-dimensional orthonormal tree-structured Haar transform (3D-OTSHT) targeting fast full search equivalent for three-dimensional block matching in multichannel images. The use of a three-dimensional integral image significantly saves time to obtain the 3D-OTSHT coefficients. We demonstrate superior performance of the proposed block matching

A Panorama on Multiscale Geometric Representations, Intertwining Spatial, Directional and Frequency Selectivity

The richness of natural images makes the quest for optimal representations in image processing and computer vision challenging. The latter observation has not prevented the design of image representations, which trade off between efficiency and complexity, while achieving accurate rendering of smooth regions as well as reproducing faithful contours and textures. The most recent ones, proposed in the past decade, share an hybrid heritage highlighting the multiscale and oriented nature of edges and patterns in images. This paper presents a panorama of the aforementioned literature on decompositions in multiscale, multi-orientation bases or dictionaries. They typically exhibit redundancy to improve sparsity in the transformed domain and sometimes its invariance with respect to simple geometric deformations (translation, rotation). Oriented multiscale dictionaries extend traditional wavelet processing and may offer rotation invariance. Highly redundant dictionaries require specific algorithms to simplify the search for an efficient (sparse) representation. We also discuss the extension of multiscale geometric decompositions to non-Euclidean domains such as the sphere or arbitrary meshed surfaces. The etymology of panorama suggests an overview, based on a choice of partially overlapping "pictures". We hope that this paper will contribute to the appreciation and apprehension of a stream of current research directions in image understanding.Comment: 65 pages, 33 figures, 303 reference

Wavelets and Imaging Informatics: A Review of the Literature

AbstractModern medicine is a field that has been revolutionized by the emergence of computer and imaging technology. It is increasingly difficult, however, to manage the ever-growing enormous amount of medical imaging information available in digital formats. Numerous techniques have been developed to make the imaging information more easily accessible and to perform analysis automatically. Among these techniques, wavelet transforms have proven prominently useful not only for biomedical imaging but also for signal and image processing in general. Wavelet transforms decompose a signal into frequency bands, the width of which are determined by a dyadic scheme. This particular way of dividing frequency bands matches the statistical properties of most images very well. During the past decade, there has been active research in applying wavelets to various aspects of imaging informatics, including compression, enhancements, analysis, classification, and retrieval. This review represents a survey of the most significant practical and theoretical advances in the field of wavelet-based imaging informatics

Multiscale Transforms for Signals on Simplicial Complexes

Our previous multiscale graph basis dictionaries/graph signal transforms -- Generalized Haar-Walsh Transform (GHWT); Hierarchical Graph Laplacian Eigen Transform (HGLET); Natural Graph Wavelet Packets (NGWPs); and their relatives -- were developed for analyzing data recorded on nodes of a given graph. In this article, we propose their generalization for analyzing data recorded on edges, faces (i.e., triangles), or more generally $\kappa$-dimensional simplices of a simplicial complex (e.g., a triangle mesh of a manifold). The key idea is to use the Hodge Laplacians and their variants for hierarchical partitioning of a set of $\kappa$-dimensional simplices in a given simplicial complex, and then build localized basis functions on these partitioned subsets. We demonstrate their usefulness for data representation on both illustrative synthetic examples and real-world simplicial complexes generated from a co-authorship/citation dataset and an ocean current/flow dataset.Comment: 19 Pages, Comments welcom

Fractal image compression and the self-affinity assumption : a stochastic signal modelling perspective

Bibliography: p. 208-225.Fractal image compression is a comparatively new technique which has gained considerable attention in the popular technical press, and more recently in the research literature. The most significant advantages claimed are high reconstruction quality at low coding rates, rapid decoding, and "resolution independence" in the sense that an encoded image may be decoded at a higher resolution than the original. While many of the claims published in the popular technical press are clearly extravagant, it appears from the rapidly growing body of published research that fractal image compression is capable of performance comparable with that of other techniques enjoying the benefit of a considerably more robust theoretical foundation. . So called because of the similarities between the form of image representation and a mechanism widely used in generating deterministic fractal images, fractal compression represents an image by the parameters of a set of affine transforms on image blocks under which the image is approximately invariant. Although the conditions imposed on these transforms may be shown to be sufficient to guarantee that an approximation of the original image can be reconstructed, there is no obvious theoretical reason to expect this to represent an efficient representation for image coding purposes. The usual analogy with vector quantisation, in which each image is considered to be represented in terms of code vectors extracted from the image itself is instructive, but transforms the fundamental problem into one of understanding why this construction results in an efficient codebook. The signal property required for such a codebook to be effective, termed "self-affinity", is poorly understood. A stochastic signal model based examination of this property is the primary contribution of this dissertation. The most significant findings (subject to some important restrictions} are that "self-affinity" is not a natural consequence of common statistical assumptions but requires particular conditions which are inadequately characterised by second order statistics, and that "natural" images are only marginally "self-affine", to the extent that fractal image compression is effective, but not more so than comparable standard vector quantisation techniques

Adaptive Image Denoising by Targeted Databases

We propose a data-dependent denoising procedure to restore noisy images. Different from existing denoising algorithms which search for patches from either the noisy image or a generic database, the new algorithm finds patches from a database that contains only relevant patches. We formulate the denoising problem as an optimal filter design problem and make two contributions. First, we determine the basis function of the denoising filter by solving a group sparsity minimization problem. The optimization formulation generalizes existing denoising algorithms and offers systematic analysis of the performance. Improvement methods are proposed to enhance the patch search process. Second, we determine the spectral coefficients of the denoising filter by considering a localized Bayesian prior. The localized prior leverages the similarity of the targeted database, alleviates the intensive Bayesian computation, and links the new method to the classical linear minimum mean squared error estimation. We demonstrate applications of the proposed method in a variety of scenarios, including text images, multiview images and face images. Experimental results show the superiority of the new algorithm over existing methods.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables, journa