Switching bilateral filter with a texture/noise detector for universal noise removal

In this paper, we propose a switching bilateral filter (SBF) with a texture and noise detector for universal noise removal. Operation was carried out in two stages: detection followed by filtering. For detection, we propose the sorted quadrant median vector (SQMV) scheme, which includes important features such as edge or texture information. This information is utilized to allocate a reference median from SQMV, which is in turn compared with a current pixel to classify it as impulse noise, Gaussian noise, or noise-free. The SBF removes both Gaussian and impulse noise without adding another weighting function. The range filter inside the bilateral filter switches between the Gaussian and impulse modes depending on the noise classification result. Simulation results show that our noise detector has a high noise detection rate as well as a high classification rate for salt-and-pepper, uniform impulse noise and mixed impulse noise. Unlike most other impulse noise filters, the proposed SBF achieves high peak signal-to-noise ratio and great image quality by efficiently removing both types of mixed noise, salt-and-pepper with uniform noise and salt-and-pepper with Gaussian noise. In addition, the computational complexity of SBF is significantly less than that of other mixed noise filters.