A fast minimization method for blur and multiplicative noise removal

Multiplicative noise and blur removal problems have attracted much attention in recent years. In this paper, we propose an efficient minimization method to recover images from input blurred and multiplicative noisy images. In the proposed algorithm, we make use of the logarithm to transform blurring and multiplicative noise problems into additive image degradation problems, and then employ l ₁-norm to measure in the data-fitting term and the total variation to measure the regularization term. The alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is used to solve the corresponding minimization problem. In order to guarantee the convergence of the ADMM algorithm, we approximate the associated nonconvex domain of the minimization problem by a convex domain. Experimental results are given to demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs better than the other existing methods in terms of speed and peak signal noise ratio.     

基于非局部总广义变分的图像去噪

针对全变分(TV)模型在去除图像噪声时容易产生阶梯效应的缺点,将二阶总广义变分(TGV)作为正则项应用于全变分模型中可以有效地去除阶梯效应,并且还能够更好地保持图像边缘纹理结构;利用非局部均值滤波算法的思想来构造非局部微分算子,将非局部微分算子应用于总广义变分模型中,综合提出了一种基于非局部总广义变分的图像去噪新模型。新模型充分利用了图像的全局信息进行去噪。实验结果显示了该模型的有效性和优越性。     

基于二阶总广义变差的欠采样图像重构方法

针对欠采样图像重构的凸优化问题,提出一种基于二阶总广义变差(TGV)范数最小化的算法。利用图像的二阶TGV半范作为正则约束项,自动地平衡一、二阶导数项,使得该算法可以更好地恢复图像边缘,有利于平滑噪声,避免阶梯效应。为了有效地计算该模型,通过正交投影和调整权重阈值对每一步迭代结果进行修正,最终获得更准确的重构结果。实验结果表明,与正交匹配追踪(OMP)模型和全变差(TV)模型比对,该算法重构的图像其峰值信噪比(PSNR)及结构相似度(SSIM)都有明显的提高,重构效果较好。     

Multiplicative Denoising Based on Linearized Alternating Direction Method Using Discrepancy Function Constraint

The multiplicative noise (speckle) in coherent imaging systems such as synthetic aperture radar makes it difficult to interpret observed images. Recently, the total variation (TV) models have received much interest in removing the speckle due to the strong edge preserving ability and low computational cost of the TV regularizer. However, the classical methods have difficulties in two aspects: one is how to efficiently compute the solution of the models with special data-fidelity terms, the other is how to choose the regularization parameter since the variational models are rather sensitive to the parameter. In this paper, we propose a new linearized alternating direction method, which is able to handle the data-fidelity term efficiently, and meanwhile estimate the optimal value of the regularization parameter exactly based on a discrepancy function constraint. We further establish the global convergence of the proposed algorithm. Numerical experiments demonstrate that our methods overall outperform the current state-of-the-art methods for multiplicative noise removal.     

Multiplicative noise removal via combining total variation and wavelet frame

Total variation (TV) regularization has been proved effective for cartoon images restoration however it produces staircase effects, and properly wavelet frames were confirmed to provide a more smoothing approximation to the original image. In this paper, a new model for multiplicative noise removal was proposed, which combines wavelet frame-based regularization and TV regularization. A modified proximal linearized alternating direction method is developed to solve the proposed model, considering that adding a new regularization term to the TV model would yield more parameters, which will result in computational difficulties. For the new model, the existence of solution and the convergence property of the proposed algorithm are proved. Numerical experiments have proved that the proposed model has a superior performance in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio and the relative error values for non-piecewise constant images when compared with some state-of-the-art multiplicative noise removal models.     

A new variational model for removal of combined additive and multiplicative noise and a fast algorithm for its numerical approximation

Variational image restoration models for both additive and multiplicative noise (MN) removal are rarely encountered in the literature. This paper proposes a new variational model and a fast algorithm for its numerical approximation to remove independent additive and MN from digital images. Two previous works by L. Rudin, S. Osher, and E. Fatemi [Nonlinear total variation based noise removal algorithms, Phys. D 60 (1992), pp. 259–268] and Z. Jin and X. Yang [Analysis of a new variational model for multiplicative noise removal, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 362 (2010), pp. 415–426] are used to develop the new model. As a result, developing a fast numerical algorithm is difficult because the associated Euler–Lagrange equation is highly nonlinear and standard unilevel iterative methods are not appropriate. To this end, we develop an efficient nonlinear multigrid approach via a robust fixed-point smoother. Numerical tests using both synthetic and realistic images not only confirm that our new model delivers quality results but also that the proposed numerical algorithm allows a very fast numerical realization of the model.     

Multiplicative noise removal via adaptive learned dictionaries and TV regularization

Multiplicative noise removal is a key issue in image processing problem. While a large amount of literature on this subject are total variation (TV)-based and wavelet-based methods, recently sparse representation of images has shown to be efficient approach for image restoration. TV regularization is efficient to restore cartoon images while dictionaries are well adapted to textures and some tricky structures. Following this idea, in this paper, we propose an approach that combines the advantages of sparse representation over dictionary learning and TV regularization method. The method is proposed to solve multiplicative noise removal problem by minimizing the energy functional, which is composed of the data-fidelity term, a sparse representation prior over adaptive learned dictionaries, and TV regularization term. The optimization problem can be efficiently solved by the split Bregman algorithm. Experimental results validate that the proposed model has a superior performance than many recent methods, in terms of peak signal-to-noise ratio, mean absolute-deviation error, mean structure similarity, and subjective visual quality.     

A Fast Algorithm for Deconvolution and Poisson Noise Removal

Poisson noise removal problems have attracted much attention in recent years. The main aim of this paper is to study and propose an alternating minimization algorithm for Poisson noise removal with nonnegative constraint. The algorithm minimizes the sum of a Kullback-Leibler divergence term and a total variation term. We derive the algorithm by utilizing the quadratic penalty function technique. Moreover, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is also established under very mild conditions. Numerical comparisons between our approach and several state-of-the-art algorithms are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of our proposed algorithm.     

去除乘性噪声的重加权各向异性全变差模型

恢复含乘性噪声的图像是当前图像处理的重要研究课题. 本文提出基于迭代重加权的各向异性全变差(Total variation, TV)模型. 新模型中, 假定乘性噪声服从Gamma分布. 正则项采用加权的各向异性全变差, 其中, 自适应权函数由期望最大(Expectation maximization, EM)算法得到. 新模型在有效去噪的同时, 较好地保留了图像的边缘和细节信息, 同时能够有效地抑制"阶梯效应". 数值实验验证了新模型的效果.     

Self-organizing maps by difference of convex functions optimization

We offer an efficient approach based on difference of convex functions (DC) optimization for self-organizing maps (SOM). We consider SOM as an optimization problem with a nonsmooth, nonconvex energy function and investigated DC programming and DC algorithm (DCA), an innovative approach in nonconvex optimization framework to effectively solve this problem. Furthermore an appropriate training version of this algorithm is proposed. The numerical results on many real-world datasets show the efficiency of the proposed DCA based algorithms on both quality of solutions and topographic maps.     

Total Generalized Variation Based Denoising Models for Ultrasound Images

In this paper, we introduce a class of variational models for the restoration of ultrasound images corrupted by noise. The proposed models involve the convex or nonconvex total generalized variation regularization. The total generalized variation regularization ameliorates the staircasing artifacts that appear in the restored images of total variation based models. Incorporating total generalized variation regularization with nonconvexity helps preserve edges in the restored images. To realize the proposed convex model, we adopt the alternating direction method of multipliers, and the iteratively reweighted \(\ell _1\) algorithm is employed to handle the nonconvex model. These methods result in fast and efficient optimization algorithms for solving our models. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed models are superior to other state-of-the-art models.     

Multiplicative noise removal combining a total variation regularizer and a nonconvex regularizer

A novel variational model for removing multiplicative noise is proposed in this paper. In the model, a novel regularization term is elaborately designed which is inherently equivalent to a combination of the classical total variation regularizer and a nonconvex regularizer. The proposed regularization term, on the one hand, can better remove the noise in homogeneous regions of a noisy image and, on the other hand, can preserve edge details of the image during the denoising process. In order to solve the model efficiently, we design an alternating iteration process in which two coupling minimization problems are solved. For each of the two minimization problems, the existence and uniqueness of their solutions are proved under some necessary assumptions. Numerical results are reported to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed regularization term for multiplicative noise removal.     

DC programming and DCA for enhancing physical layer security via cooperative jamming

The explosive development of computational tools these days is threatening security of cryptographic algorithms, which are regarded as primary traditional methods for ensuring information security. The physical layer security approach is introduced as a method for both improving confidentiality of the secret key distribution in cryptography and enabling the data transmission without relaying on higher-layer encryption. In this paper, the cooperative jamming paradigm - one of the techniques used in the physical layer is studied and the resulting power allocation problem with the aim of maximizing the sum of secrecy rates subject to power constraints is formulated as a nonconvex optimization problem. The objective function is a so-called DC (Difference of Convex functions) function, and some constraints are coupling. We propose a new DC formulation and develop an efficient DCA (DC Algorithm) to deal with this nonconvex program. The DCA introduces the elegant concept of approximating the original nonconvex program by a sequence of convex ones: at each iteration of DCA requires solution of a convex subproblem. The main advantage of the proposed approach is that it leads to strongly convex quadratic subproblems with separate variables in the objective function, which can be tackled by both distributed and centralized methods. One of the major contributions of the paper is to develop a highly efficient distributed algorithm to solve the convex subproblem. We adopt the dual decomposition method that results in computing iteratively the projection of points onto a very simple structural set which can be determined by an inexpensive procedure. The numerical results show the efficiency and the superiority of the new DCA based algorithm compared with existing approaches.     

一种新的压缩采样匹配追踪算法

提出了实用性更强的完全受噪声扰动理论模型,引入了与原信号相关的乘性噪声;并基于新的模型,提出了一种改进的压缩采样匹配追踪算法.该算法通过构造一个感知测量矩阵,在信号替代阶段中取代随机测量矩阵来减少相关性对支撑集筛选的影响,最后可在乘性噪声存在的情况下实现了信号的精确重建.实验结果表明,在相同测试条件下,该算法的重建效果均优于其他贪婪算法和基匹配法(basic pursuit,BP).     

基于前向后向算子分裂的稀疏性正则化图像超分辨率算法

提出了一种新的基于稀疏表示正则化的多帧图像超分辨凸变分模型, 模型中的正则项刻画了理想图 像在框架系统下的稀疏性先验, 保真项度量其在退化模型下与观测信号的一致性, 同时分析了最优解条件. 进一步, 基于前向后向算子分裂法提出了求解该模型的不动点迭代数值算法, 每一次迭代分解为仅对保真项的前向(显式)步与仅对正则项的后向(隐式)步, 从而大幅度降低了计算复杂性; 分析了算法的收敛性, 并采取序贯策略提高收敛速度. 针对可见光与红外图像序列进行了数值仿真, 实验结果验证了本文模型与数值算法的有效性.     

Adaptive Variational Method for Restoring Color Images with High Density Impulse Noise

In this paper, a new variational framework of restoring color images with impulse noise is presented. The novelty of this work is the introduction of an adaptively weighting data-fidelity term in the cost functional. The fidelity term is derived from statistical methods and contains two weighting functions as well as some statistical control parameters of noise. This method is based on the fact that impulse noise can be approximated as an additive noise with probability density function (PDF) being the finite mixture model. A Bayesian framework is then formulated in which likelihood functions are given by the mixture model. Inspired by the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm, we present two models with variational framework in this study. The superiority of the proposed models is that: the weighting functions can effectively detect the noise in the image; with the noise information, the proposed algorithm can automatically balance the regularity of the restored image and the fidelity term by updating the weighting functions and the control parameters. These two steps ensure that one can obtain a good restoration even though the degraded color image is contaminated by impulse noise with large ration (90% or more). In addition, the numerical implementation of this algorithm is very fast by using a split algorithm. Some numerical experimental results and comparisons with other methods are provided to show the significant effectiveness of our approach.     

Removing Multiplicative Noise by Douglas-Rachford Splitting Methods

In this paper, we consider a variational restoration model consisting of the I-divergence as data fitting term and the total variation semi-norm or nonlocal means as regularizer for removing multiplicative Gamma noise. Although the I-divergence is the typical data fitting term when dealing with Poisson noise we substantiate why it is also appropriate for cleaning Gamma noise. We propose to compute the minimizers of our restoration functionals by applying Douglas-Rachford splitting techniques, resp. alternating direction methods of multipliers. For a particular splitting, we present a semi-implicit scheme to solve the involved nonlinear systems of equations and prove its Q-linear convergence. Finally, we demonstrate the performance of our methods by numerical examples.     

Image Segmentation Using a Local GMM in a Variational Framework

In this paper, we propose a new variational framework to solve the Gaussian mixture model (GMM) based methods for image segmentation by employing the convex relaxation approach. After relaxing the indicator function in GMM, flexible spatial regularization can be adopted and efficient segmentation can be achieved. To demonstrate the superiority of the proposed framework, the global, local intensity information and the spatial smoothness are integrated into a new model, and it can work well on images with inhomogeneous intensity and noise. Compared to classical GMM, numerical experiments have demonstrated that our algorithm can achieve promising segmentation performance for images degraded by intensity inhomogeneity and noise.     

An Effective Region Force for Some Variational Models for Learning and Clustering

In this paper we propose two variational models for semi-supervised clustering of high-dimensional data. The new models produce substantial improvements of the classification accuracy in comparison with the corresponding models without the regional force in cases that the sample rate is relatively low. For the proposed models, the data points are modeled as vertices of a weighted graph, and the labeling function defined on each vertex takes values from the unit simplex, which can be interpreted as the probability of belonging to each class. The algorithm is proposed as a minimization of a convex functional of the labeling function. The first model combines the Rayleigh quotient for the graph Laplacian and a region-force term, and the second one only replaces the Rayleigh quotient with the total variation of the labeling function. The region-force term is calculated by the affinity between each vertex and the training samples, characterizing the conditional probability of each vertex belonging to each class. The numerical methods for solving these two versions of the proposed algorithm are presented, and both are tested on several benchmark data sets such as handwritten digits (MNIST) and moons data. Experiments indicate that the classification accuracy and the computational speed are competitive with the state-of-the-art in multi-class semi-supervised clustering algorithms. Numerical experiments also confirm that the total variation model out performs the Laplacian counter part in most of the tests.     

A Variational Model for Multiplicative Structured Noise Removal

We consider the problem of restoring images impaired by noise that is simultaneously structured and multiplicative. Our primary motivation for this setting is the selective plane illumination microscope which often suffers from severe inhomogeneities due to light absorption and scattering. This type of degradation arises in other imaging devices such as ultrasonic imaging. We model the multiplicative noise as a stationary process with known distribution. This leads to a novel convex image restoration model based on a maximum a posteriori estimator. After establishing some analytical properties of the minimizers, we finally propose a fast optimization method on GPU. Numerical experiments on 2D fluorescence microscopy images demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed models in practical applications.