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Semi-variogram estimators and distortion measures of signal spectra are utilized in this paper for image texture retrieval. On the use of the complete Brodatz database, most high retrieval rates are reportedly based on multiple features and the combinations of multiple algorithms, while the classification using single features is still a challenge to the retrieval of diverse texture images. The semi-variogram, which is theoretically sound and the cornerstone of spatial statistics, has the characteristics shared between true randomness and complete determinism and, therefore, can be used as a useful tool for both the structural and statistical analysis of texture images. Meanwhile, spectral distortion measures derived from the theory of linear predictive coding provide a rigorously mathematical model for signal-based similarity matching and have been proven useful for many practical pattern classification systems. Experimental results obtained from testing the proposed approach using the complete Brodatz database, and the the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign texture database suggests the effectiveness of the proposed approach as a single-feature-based dissimilarity measure for real-time texture retrieval. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The dual-tree quaternion wavelet transform (QWT) is a new multiscale analysis tool for geometric image features. The QWT is a near shift-invariant tight frame representation whose coefficients sport a magnitude and three phases: two phases encode local image shifts while the third contains image texture information. The QWT is based on an alternative theory for the 2-D Hilbert transform and can be computed using a dual-tree filter bank with linear computational complexity. To demonstrate the properties of the QWT's coherent magnitude/phase representation, we develop an efficient and accurate procedure for estimating the local geometrical structure of an image. We also develop a new multiscale algorithm for estimating the disparity between a pair of images that is promising for image registration and flow estimation applications. The algorithm features multiscale phase unwrapping, linear complexity, and sub-pixel estimation accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Noise level is an important parameter to many image processing applications. For example, the performance of an image denoising algorithm can be much degraded due to the poor noise level estimation. Most existing denoising algorithms simply assume the noise level is known that largely prevents them from practical use. Moreover, even with the given true noise level, these denoising algorithms still cannot achieve the best performance, especially for scenes with rich texture. In this paper, we propose a patch-based noise level estimation algorithm and suggest that the noise level parameter should be tuned according to the scene complexity. Our approach includes the process of selecting low-rank patches without high frequency components from a single noisy image. The selection is based on the gradients of the patches and their statistics. Then, the noise level is estimated from the selected patches using principal component analysis. Because the true noise level does not always provide the best performance for nonblind denoising algorithms, we further tune the noise level parameter for nonblind denoising. Experiments demonstrate that both the accuracy and stability are superior to the state of the art noise level estimation algorithm for various scenes and noise levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development of an unsupervised image segmentation framework (referred to as CTex) that is based on the adaptive inclusion of color and texture in the process of data partition. An important contribution of this work consists of a new formulation for the extraction of color features that evaluates the input image in a multispace color representation. To achieve this, we have used the opponent characteristics of the RGB and YIQ color spaces where the key component was the inclusion of the Self Organizing Map (SOM) network in the computation of the dominant colors and estimation of the optimal number of clusters in the image. The texture features are computed using a multichannel texture decomposition scheme based on Gabor filtering. The major contribution of this work resides in the adaptive integration of the color and texture features in a compound mathematical descriptor with the aim of identifying the homogenous regions in the image. This integration is performed by a novel adaptive clustering algorithm that enforces the spatial continuity during the data assignment process. A comprehensive qualitative and quantitative performance evaluation has been carried out and the experimental results indicate that the proposed technique is accurate in capturing the color and texture characteristics when applied to complex natural images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]