Noise Removal via Bayesian Wavelet Coring

Eero P Simoncelli and Edward H Adelson

Published in:
Proc. 3rd International Conference on Image Processing
Lausanne, Switzerland. September, 1996.
doi; 10.1109/ICIP.1996.559512
© IEEE Signal Processing Society

More recent, full-length papers on wavelet denoising:
  • Bayesian denoising of visual images in the wavelet domain, Spring 1999.
  • Image denoising using a scale mixture of Gaussians in the wavelet domain, Fall 2003.


The classical solution to the noise removal problem is the Wiener filter, which utilizes the second-order statistics of the Fourier decomposition. Subband decompositions of natural images have significantly non-Gaussian higher-order point statistics; these statistics capture image properties that elude Fourier-based techniques. We develop a Bayesian estimator that is a natural extension of the Wiener solution, and that exploits these higher-order statistics. The resulting nonlinear estimator performs a ``coring'' operation. We provide a simple model for the subband statistics, and use it to develop a semi-blind noise-removal algorithm based on a steerable wavelet pyramid.
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