Image processing device and method, program recording medium, and imaging system

• US 8,270,758 B2
• Filed: 03/25/2010
• Issued: 09/18/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Original Assignee: Olympus Corporation
• Inventors: Naito, Yukihiro
• Primary Examiner(s): Seth, Manav
• Application Number:
  US12/731,256
• Publication Number:
  US 20100246991A1
• Time in Patent Office: 908 Days
• Field of Search: 382100-325
• US Class Current: 382/275
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20016 Hierarchical, coarse-to-fine, multiscale or multiresolution image processing; Pyramid transform
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/20 using local operators
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/70 Denoising; Smoothing
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/30 Noise filtering

Abstract

A number of invalid pixels at an outer peripheral part is reduced while suppressing an influence on an image quality such as discontinuity by pixel expansion, and suppressing increase in a number of processing pixels. When sequentially generating a plurality of reduced images having resolutions different from each other by sequentially performing a reduction process on an input image when realizing a noise reduction process using multiresolution transformation, the pixel expansion process of expanding the pixels at the outer peripheral part of the image of the reduced image is performed at least once before performing one of the reduction processes, and the reduced image after the pixel expansion process is further reduced to generate the plurality of reduced images.

Claims

1. An image processing device comprising:

a filtering unit comprising a plurality of filtering unit stages for filtering an input image;

a plurality of band image signal generating units for generating a plurality of band image signals having different frequency bands from each other from an output image of the filtering unit;

a noise reduction processing unit for performing a noise reduction process of reducing a noise component contained in the plurality of band image signals generated by the band image signal generating units; and

a plurality of image synthesizing units for synthesizing the plurality of band image signals subjected to the noise reduction process;

wherein the image processing device includes a first pixel expansion unit for performing a pixel expansion process of expanding pixels at an outer peripheral part of an image input to one of the plurality of filtering unit stages other than a first stage of the filtering unit, or an image output from one of the plurality of band image signal generating units.

2. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising a second pixel expansion unit, arranged on an input side of the first stage of the filtering unit, for performing the pixel expansion process of expanding the pixels at the outer peripheral part of the input image.

3. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein at least one of the plurality of filtering unit stages reduces the input image or an output image of a previous one of the filtering unit stages.

4. The image processing device according to claim 1, wherein the first pixel expansion unit is arranged on an input side of a final stage of the filtering unit.

5. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising a second pixel expansion unit for performing the pixel expansion process of enlarging the pixels at the outer peripheral part of the image of a band image signal in which at least a band frequency is second lowest from among the plurality of band image signals output from the plurality of band image signal generating units.

6. The image processing device according to claim 1, further comprising:

a noise reduction intensity limiting unit for limiting an intensity of noise reduction in the noise reduction processing unit;

wherein the noise reduction intensity limiting unit includes a mixing part for mixing a band image signal before the noise reduction process by the noise reduction processing unit and the band image signal after the noise reduction process, the noise reduction intensity being controlled by controlling a mixing ratio.

7. The image processing device according to claim 6, wherein the mixing ratio is adjusted so that a mixing proportion of the band image signal after the noise reduction at the outer peripheral part of the image is smaller than at a portion other than the outer peripheral part of the image.

8. An imaging system comprising:

an imaging unit for acquiring an image; and

the image processing device according to claim 1 for performing image processing with respect to the image acquired by the imaging unit.

9. An image processing method comprising:

performing filtering over plural times with respect to an input image;

generating a plurality of band image signals having different frequency bands from each other from a plurality of output images obtained by the filtering of plural times;

performing a pixel expansion process of expanding pixels at outer peripheral parts of the plurality of output images obtained by the filtering and at least one image of the plurality of band image signals;

performing a noise reduction process of reducing a noise component contained in the plurality of band image signals; and

synthesizing the plurality of band image signals subjected to the noise reduction process.

10. The image processing method according to claim 9, wherein the pixel expansion process of expanding the pixels at the outer peripheral part of the image is performed with respect to the input image.

11. A computer readable storage device having an image processing program stored thereon for causing a computer to execute functions comprising:

performing filtering over plural times with respect to an input image;

generating a plurality of band image signals having different frequency bands from each other from a plurality of output images obtained by the filtering of plural times;

performing a pixel expansion process of expanding pixels at outer peripheral parts of the plurality of output images obtained by the filtering and at least one image of the plurality of band image signals;

performing a noise reduction process of reducing a noise component contained in the plurality of band image signals; and

synthesizing the plurality of band image signals subjected to the noise reduction process.

12. The computer readable storage device according to claim 11, wherein the pixel expansion process of expanding the pixels at the outer peripheral part of the image is performed with respect to the input image.