Estimation of image noise variance

Author

Rank, K. ; Lendl, M. ; Unbehauen, R.

Author_Institution

Lehrstuhl fur Allgemeine und Theor. Elektrotech., Erlangen-Nurnberg Univ., Germany

Volume

146

Issue

2

fYear

1999

fDate

8/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

80

Lastpage

84

Abstract

A novel algorithm for estimating the noise variance of an image is presented. The image is assumed to be corrupted by Gaussian distributed noise. The algorithm estimates the noise variance in three steps. At first the noisy image is filtered by a horizontal and a vertical difference operator to suppress the influence of the (unknown) original image. In a second step a histogram of local signal variances is computed. Finally a statistical evaluation of the histogram provides the desired estimation value. For a comparison with several previously published estimation methods an ensemble of 128 natural and artificial test images is used. It is shown that with the novel algorithm more accurate results can be achieved

Keywords

image processing; iterative methods; noise; statistical analysis; Gaussian distributed noise; algorithm; artificial test images; estimation methods; horizontal difference operator; image noise variance estimation; image processing; iterative histogram; local signal variances histogram; natural test images; noise corrupted image; noisy image; prefiltered image; statistical evaluation; vertical difference operator;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Vision, Image and Signal Processing, IEE Proceedings -

Publisher

iet

ISSN

1350-245X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/ip-vis:19990238

Filename

788764