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This paper introduces a stochastic plug-and-play (PnP) sampling algorithm that leverages variable splitting to efficiently sample from a posterior distribution. The algorithm based on split Gibbs sampling (SGS) draws inspiration from the half quadratic splitting method (HQS) and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). It divides the challenging task of posterior sampling into two simpler sampling problems. The first problem depends on the likelihood function, while the second is interpreted as a Bayesian denoising problem that can be readily carried out by a deep generative model. Specifically, for an illustrative purpose, the proposed method is implemented in this paper using state-of-the-art diffusion-based generative models. Akin to its deterministic PnP-based counterparts, the proposed method exhibits the great advantage of not requiring an explicit choice of the prior distribution, which is rather encoded into a pre-trained generative model. However, unlike optimization methods (e.g., PnP-ADMM and PnP-HQS) which generally provide only point estimates, the proposed approach allows conventional Bayesian estimators to be accompanied by confidence intervals at a reasonable additional computational cost. Experiments on commonly studied image processing problems illustrate the efficiency of the proposed sampling strategy. Its performance is compared to recent state-of-the-art optimization and sampling methods.

When adopting a model-based formulation, solving inverse problems encountered in multiband imaging requires to define spatial and spectral regularizations. In most of the works of the literature, spectral information is extracted from the observations directly to derive data-driven spectral priors. Conversely, the choice of the spatial regularization often boils down to the use of conventional penalizations (e.g., total variation) promoting expected features of the reconstructed image (e.g., piece-wise constant). In this work, we propose a generic framework able to capitalize on an auxiliary acquisition of high spatial resolution to derive tailored data-driven spatial regularizations. This approach leverages on the ability of deep learning to extract high level features. More precisely, the regularization is conceived as a deep generative network able to encode spatial semantic features contained in this auxiliary image of high spatial resolution. To illustrate the versatility of this approach, it is instantiated to conduct two particular tasks, namely multiband image fusion and multiband image inpainting. Experimental results obtained on these two tasks demonstrate the benefit of this class of informed regularizations when compared to more conventional ones.

Hyperspectral unmixing is aimed at identifying the reference spectral signatures composing a hyperspectral image and their relative abundance fractions in each pixel. In practice, the identified signatures may vary spectrally from an image to another due to varying acquisition conditions, thus inducing possibly significant estimation errors. Against this background, the hyperspectral unmixing of several images acquired over the same area is of considerable interest. Indeed, such an analysis enables the endmembers of the scene to be tracked and the corresponding endmember variability to be characterized. Sequential endmember estimation from a set of hyperspectral images is expected to provide improved performance when compared with methods analyzing the images independently. However, the significant size of the hyperspectral data precludes the use of batch procedures to jointly estimate the mixture parameters of a sequence of hyperspectral images. Provided that each elementary component is present in at least one image of the sequence, we propose to perform an online hyperspectral unmixing accounting for temporal endmember variability. The online hyperspectral unmixing is formulated as a two-stage stochastic program, which can be solved using a stochastic approximation. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on synthetic and real data. Finally, a comparison with independent unmixing algorithms illustrates the interest of the proposed strategy.

This paper addresses the problem of single image super-resolution (SR), which consists of recovering a high-resolution image from its blurred, decimated, and noisy version. The existing algorithms for single image SR use different strategies to handle the decimation and blurring operators. In addition to the traditional first-order gradient methods, recent techniques investigate splitting-based methods dividing the SR problem into up-sampling and deconvolution steps that can be easily solved. Instead of following this splitting strategy, we propose to deal with the decimation and blurring operators simultaneously by taking advantage of their particular properties in the frequency domain, leading to a new fast SR approach. Specifically, an analytical solution is derived and implemented efficiently for the Gaussian prior or any other regularization that can be formulated into an l2 -regularized quadratic model, i.e., an l2 - l2 optimization problem. The flexibility of the proposed SR scheme is shown through the use of various priors/regularizations, ranging from generic image priors to learning-based approaches. In the case of non-Gaussian priors, we show how the analytical solution derived from the Gaussian case can be embedded into traditional splitting frameworks, allowing the computation cost of existing algorithms to be decreased significantly. Simulation results conducted on several images with different priors illustrate the effectiveness of our fast SR approach compared with existing techniques.

We introduce a robust mixing model to describe hyperspectral data resulting from the mixture of several pure spectral signatures. The new model extends the commonly used linear mixing model by introducing an additional term accounting for possible nonlinear effects, that are treated as sparsely distributed additive outliers. With the standard nonnegativity and sum-to-one constraints inherent to spectral unmixing, our model leads to a new form of robust nonnegative matrix factorization with a group-sparse outlier term. The factorization is posed as an optimization problem, which is addressed with a block-coordinate descent algorithm involving majorization-minimization updates. Simulation results obtained on synthetic and real data show that the proposed strategy competes with the state-of-the-art linear and nonlinear unmixing methods.

This paper presents an unsupervised Bayesian algorithm for hyperspectral image unmixing, accounting for endmember variability. The pixels are modeled by a linear combination of endmembers weighted by their corresponding abundances. However, the endmembers are assumed random to consider their variability in the image. An additive noise is also considered in the proposed model, generalizing the normal compositional model. The proposed algorithm exploits the whole image to benefit from both spectral and spatial information. It estimates both the mean and the covariance matrix of each endmember in the image. This allows the behavior of each material to be analyzed and its variability to be quantified in the scene. A spatial segmentation is also obtained based on the estimated abundances. In order to estimate the parameters associated with the proposed Bayesian model, we propose to use a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm. The performance of the resulting unmixing strategy is evaluated through simulations conducted on both synthetic and real data.

This paper proposes a fast multi-band image fusion algorithm, which combines a high-spatial low-spectral resolution image and a low-spatial high-spectral resolution image. The well admitted forward model is explored to form the likelihoods of the observations. Maximizing the likelihoods leads to solving a Sylvester equation. By exploiting the properties of the circulant and downsampling matrices associated with the fusion problem, a closed-form solution for the corresponding Sylvester equation is obtained explicitly, getting rid of any iterative update step. Coupled with the alternating direction method of multipliers and the block coordinate descent method, the proposed algorithm can be easily generalized to incorporate prior information for the fusion problem, allowing a Bayesian estimator. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves the same performance as the existing algorithms with the advantage of significantly decreasing the computational complexity of these algorithms.

Texture characterization is a central element in many image processing applications. Multifractal analysis is a useful signal and image processing tool, yet, the accurate estimation of multifractal parameters for image texture remains a challenge. This is due in the main to the fact that current estimation procedures consist of performing linear regressions across frequency scales of the 2D dyadic wavelet transform, for which only a few such scales are computable for images. The strongly non-Gaussian nature of multifractal processes, combined with their complicated dependence structure, makes it difficult to develop suitable models for parameter estimation. Here, we propose a Bayesian procedure that addresses the difficulties in the estimation of the multifractality parameter. The originality of the procedure is threefold. The construction of a generic semiparametric statistical model for the logarithm of wavelet leaders; the formulation of Bayesian estimators that are associated with this model and the set of parameter values admitted by multifractal theory; the exploitation of a suitable Whittle approximation within the Bayesian model which enables the otherwise infeasible evaluation of the posterior distribution associated with the model. Performance is assessed numerically for several 2D multifractal processes, for several image sizes and a large range of process parameters. The procedure yields significant benefits over current benchmark estimators in terms of estimation performance and ability to discriminate between the two most commonly used classes of multifractal process models. The gains in performance are particularly pronounced for small image sizes, notably enabling for the first time the analysis of image patches as small as 64 × 64 pixels.

This paper presents a nonlinear mixing model for hyperspectral image unmixing. The proposed model assumes that the pixel reflectances are post-nonlinear functions of unknown pure spectral components contaminated by an additive white Gaussian noise. These nonlinear functions are approximated using second-order polynomials leading to a polynomial post-nonlinear mixing model. A Bayesian algorithm is proposed to estimate the parameters involved in the model yielding an unsupervised nonlinear unmixing algorithm. Due to the large number of parameters to be estimated, an efficient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo algorithm is investigated. The classical leapfrog steps of this algorithm are modified to handle the parameter constraints. The performance of the unmixing strategy, including convergence and parameter tuning, is first evaluated on synthetic data. Simulations conducted with real data finally show the accuracy of the proposed unmixing strategy for the analysis of hyperspectral images.

This paper presents a nonlinear mixing model for joint hyperspectral image unmixing and nonlinearity detection. The proposed model assumes that the pixel reflectances are linear combinations of known pure spectral components corrupted by an additional nonlinear term, affecting the end members and contaminated by an additive Gaussian noise. A Markov random field is considered for nonlinearity detection based on the spatial structure of the nonlinear terms. The observed image is segmented into regions where nonlinear terms, if present, share similar statistical properties. A Bayesian algorithm is proposed to estimate the parameters involved in the model yielding a joint nonlinear unmixing and nonlinearity detection algorithm. The performance of the proposed strategy is first evaluated on synthetic data. Simulations conducted with real data show the accuracy of the proposed unmixing and nonlinearity detection strategy for the analysis of hyperspectral images.

This paper addresses the problem of estimating the Potts parameter β jointly with the unknown parameters of a Bayesian model within a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Standard MCMC methods cannot be applied to this problem because performing inference on β requires computing the intractable normalizing constant of the Potts model. In the proposed MCMC method, the estimation of β is conducted using a likelihood-free Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. Experimental results obtained for synthetic data show that estimating β jointly with the other unknown parameters leads to estimation results that are as good as those obtained with the actual value of β. On the other hand, choosing an incorrect value of β can degrade estimation performance significantly. To illustrate the interest of this method, the proposed algorithm is successfully applied to real bidimensional SAR and tridimensional ultrasound images.

This paper studies a nonlinear mixing model for hyperspectral image unmixing and nonlinearity detection. The proposed model assumes that the pixel reflectances are nonlinear functions of pure spectral components contaminated by an additive white Gaussian noise. These nonlinear functions are approximated by polynomials leading to a polynomial post-nonlinear mixing model. We have shown in a previous paper that the parameters involved in the resulting model can be estimated using least squares methods. A generalized likelihood ratio test based on the estimator of the nonlinearity parameter is proposed to decide whether a pixel of the image results from the commonly used linear mixing model or from a more general nonlinear mixing model. To compute the test statistic associated with the nonlinearity detection, we propose to approximate the variance of the estimated nonlinearity parameter by its constrained Cramér-Rao bound. The performance of the detection strategy is evaluated via simulations conducted on synthetic and real data. More precisely, synthetic data have been generated according to the standard linear mixing model and three nonlinear models from the literature. The real data investigated in this study are extracted from the Cuprite image, which shows that some minerals seem to be nonlinearly mixed in this image. Finally, it is interesting to note that the estimated abundance maps obtained with the post-nonlinear mixing model are in good agreement with results obtained in previous studies.

Linear spectral unmixing is a challenging problem in hyperspectral imaging that consists of decomposing an observed pixel into a linear combination of pure spectra (or endmembers) with their corresponding proportions (or abundances). Endmember extraction algorithms can be employed for recovering the spectral signatures while abundances are estimated using an inversion step. Recent works have shown that exploiting spatial dependencies between image pixels can improve spectral unmixing. Markov random fields (MRF) are classically used to model these spatial correlations and partition the image into multiple classes with homogeneous abundances. This paper proposes to define the MRF sites using similarity regions. These regions are built using a self-complementary area filter that stems from the morphological theory. This kind of filter divides the original image into flat zones where the underlying pixels have the same spectral values. Once the MRF has been clearly established, a hierarchical Bayesian algorithm is proposed to estimate the abundances, the class labels, the noise variance, and the corresponding hyperparameters. A hybrid Gibbs sampler is constructed to generate samples according to the corresponding posterior distribution of the unknown parameters and hyperparameters. Simulations conducted on synthetic and real AVIRIS data demonstrate the good performance of the algorithm.

We propose a solution to the image deconvolution problem where the convolution kernel or point spread function (PSF) is assumed to be only partially known. Small perturbations generated from the model are exploited to produce a few principal components explaining the PSF uncertainty in a high-dimensional space. Unlike recent developments on blind deconvolution of natural images, we assume the image is sparse in the pixel basis, a natural sparsity arising in magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM). Our approach adopts a Bayesian Metropolis-within-Gibbs sampling framework. The performance of our Bayesian semi-blind algorithm for sparse images is superior to previously proposed semi-blind algorithms such as the alternating minimization algorithm and blind algorithms developed for natural images. We illustrate our myopic algorithm on real MRFM tobacco virus data.

This paper presents a nonlinear mixing model for hyperspectral image unmixing. The proposed model assumes that the pixel reflectances are nonlinear functions of pure spectral components contaminated by an additive white Gaussian noise. These nonlinear functions are approximated using polynomial functions leading to a polynomial postnonlinear mixing model. A Bayesian algorithm and optimization methods are proposed to estimate the parameters involved in the model. The performance of the unmixing strategies is evaluated by simulations conducted on synthetic and real data.

This paper studies a new Bayesian unmixing algorithm for hyperspectral images. Each pixel of the image is modeled as a linear combination of so-called endmembers. These endmembers are supposed to be random in order to model uncertainties regarding their knowledge. More precisely, we model endmembers as Gaussian vectors whose means have been determined using an endmember extraction algorithm such as the famous N-finder (N-FINDR) or Vertex Component Analysis (VCA) algorithms. This paper proposes to estimate the mixture coefficients (referred to as abundances) using a Bayesian algorithm. Suitable priors are assigned to the abundances in order to satisfy positivity and additivity constraints whereas conjugate priors are chosen for the remaining parameters. A hybrid Gibbs sampler is then constructed to generate abundance and variance samples distributed according to the joint posterior of the abundances and noise variances. The performance of the proposed methodology is evaluated by comparison with other unmixing algorithms on synthetic and real images.

This paper presents a hierarchical Bayesian model to reconstruct sparse images when the observations are obtained from linear transformations and corrupted by an additive white Gaussian noise. Our hierarchical Bayes model is well suited to such naturally sparse image applications as it seamlessly accounts for properties such as sparsity and positivity of the image via appropriate Bayes priors. We propose a prior that is based on a weighted mixture of a positive exponential distribution and a mass at zero. The prior has hyperparameters that are tuned automatically by marginalization over the hierarchical Bayesian model. To overcome the complexity of the posterior distribution, a Gibbs sampling strategy is proposed. The Gibbs samples can be used to estimate the image to be recovered, e.g., by maximizing the estimated posterior distribution. In our fully Bayesian approach, the posteriors of all the parameters are available. Thus, our algorithm provides more information than other previously proposed sparse reconstruction methods that only give a point estimate. The performance of the proposed hierarchical Bayesian sparse reconstruction method is illustrated on synthetic data and real data collected from a tobacco virus sample using a prototype MRFM instrument.