Methods and apparatus for image enhancement

• US 8,150,199 B2
• Filed: 03/10/2008
• Issued: 04/03/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/29/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Texas Instruments, Inc.
• Inventors: Zhou, Jianping
• Primary Examiner(s): Kassa, Yosef
• Application Number:
  US12/045,366
• Publication Number:
  US 20080240603A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,485 Days
• Field of Search: 382/260, 382/266, 382/274, 382/275, 358/3.26, 358/3.27
• US Class Current: 382/266
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20016 Hierarchical, coarse-to-fine, multiscale or multiresolution image processing; Pyramid transform
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20192 Edge enhancement; Edge preservation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/73 Deblurring; Sharpening
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/81 for suppressing or minimising disturbance in the image signal generation

Abstract

A method and apparatus of enhancing an image, the method comprising applying at least one multi-scale filter bank to at least a portion of an image to detect at least one edge at different scales, and combining the detected edges with said image to yield an enhanced to at least a portion of the image.

Claims

1. A method of enhancing an image, comprising:

applying at least one multi-scale filter bank to at least a portion of an image to detect at least one edge at different scales; and

combining the detected edges with said image to yield an enhanced to at least a portion of the image;

creating a multi-scale representation of at least a portion of an image; and

applying a nonlinear mapping on a multi-scale highpass subband coefficient.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the multi-scale representation of at least the portion of the image and the nonlinear mapping on the multi-scale highpass subband coefficient are utilized to create the enhanced to at least a portion of the image.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is utilized to at least one of detecting noise, ignoring noise, detecting weak edges, enhancing weak edges, detecting strong edges, or ignoring strong edges.

4. An image enhancing apparatus, comprising:

means for applying at least one multi-scale filter bank to at least a portion of an image to detect at least one edge at different scales; and

means for combining the detected edges with said image to yield an enhanced to at least a portion of the image.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the means for applying multi-scale filter banks step comprises:

means for creating a multi-scale representation of at least a portion of an image; and

means for applying a nonlinear mapping on a multi-scale highpass subband coefficient.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the multi-scale representation of at least the portion of the image and the nonlinear mapping on the multi-scale highpass subband coefficient are utilized to create the enhanced to at least a portion of the image.

7. The method of claim 4 wherein the image enhancing apparatus is utilized to at least one of detecting noise, ignoring noise, detecting weak edges, enhancing weak edges, detecting strong edges, or ignoring strong edges.

8. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to perform a method of enhancing at least a portion of an image, the method comprising:

applying at least one multi-scale filter bank to at least a portion of an image to detect at least one edge at different scales; and

combining the detected edges with said image to yield an enhanced to at least a portion of the image;

creating a multi-scale representation of at least a portion of an image; and

applying a nonlinear mapping on a multi-scale highpass subband coefficient.

9. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the multi-scale representation of at least the portion of the image and the nonlinear mapping on the multi-scale highpass subband coefficient are utilized to create the enhanced to at least a portion of the image.

10. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 8, wherein the method is utilized to at least one of detecting noise, ignoring noise, detecting weak edges, enhancing weak edges, detecting strong edges, or ignoring strong edges.