Improved deadzone modeling for bivariate wavelet shrinkage-based image denoising

Abstract

Modern image processing performed on-board low Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) platforms, must provide high- performance while simultaneously reducing memory footprint, power consumption, and computational complexity. Image preprocessing, along with downstream image exploitation algorithms such as object detection and recognition, and georegistration, place a heavy burden on power and processing resources. Image preprocessing often includes image denoising to improve data quality for downstream exploitation algorithms. High-performance image denoising is typically performed in the wavelet domain, where noise generally spreads and the wavelet transform compactly captures high information-bearing image characteristics. In this paper, we improve modeling fidelity of a previously-developed, computationally-efficient wavelet-based denoising algorithm. The modeling improvements enhance denoising performance without significantly increasing computational cost, thus making the approach suitable for low-SWAP platforms. Specifically, this paper presents modeling improvements to the Sendur-Selesnick model (SSM) which implements a bivariate wavelet shrinkage denoising algorithm that exploits interscale dependency between wavelet coefficients. We formulate optimization problems for parameters controlling deadzone size which leads to improved denoising performance. Two formulations are provided; one with a simple, closed form solution which we use for numerical result generation, and the second as an integral equation formulation involving elliptic integrals. We generate image denoising performance results over different image sets drawn from public domain imagery, and investigate the effect of wavelet filter tap length on denoising performance. We demonstrate denoising performance improvement when using the enhanced modeling over performance obtained with the baseline SSM model.