On the second order spatiochromatic structure of natural images.

We provide a theoretical analysis of some empirical facts about the second order spatiochromatic structure of natural images in color. In particular, we show that two simple assumptions on the covariance matrices of color images yield eigenvectors made by the Kronecker product of Fourier features times the triad given by luminance plus color opponent channels. The first of these assumptions is second order stationarity while the second one is commutativity between color correlation matrices. The validity of these assumptions and the predicted shape of the PCA components of color images are experimentally observed on two large image databases. As a by-product of this experimental study, we also provide novel data to support an exponential decay law of the spatiochromatic covariance between pairs of pixels as a function of their spatial distance.

Estimation of illuminants from projections on the Planckian locus.

This paper introduces a new approach for the automatic estimation of illuminants in a digital color image. The method relies on two assumptions. First, the image is supposed to contain at least a small set of achromatic pixels. The second assumption is physical and concerns the set of possible illuminants, assumed to be well approximated by black body radiators. The proposed scheme is based on a projection of selected pixels on the Planckian locus in a well chosen chromaticity space, followed by a voting procedure yielding the estimation of the illuminant. This approach is very simple and learning-free. The voting procedure can be extended for the detection of multiple illuminants when necessary. Experiments on various databases show that the performances of this approach are similar to those of the best learning-based state-of-the-art algorithms.

Robust automatic line scratch detection in films.

Line scratch detection in old films is a particularly challenging problem due to the variable spatiotemporal characteristics of this defect. Some of the main problems include sensitivity to noise and texture, and false detections due to thin vertical structures belonging to the scene. We propose a robust and automatic algorithm for frame-by-frame line scratch detection in old films, as well as a temporal algorithm for the filtering of false detections. In the frame-by-frame algorithm, we relax some of the hypotheses used in previous algorithms in order to detect a wider variety of scratches. This step's robustness and lack of external parameters is ensured by the combined use of an a contrario methodology and local statistical estimation. In this manner, over-detection in textured or cluttered areas is greatly reduced. The temporal filtering algorithm eliminates false detections due to thin vertical structures by exploiting the coherence of their motion with that of the underlying scene. Experiments demonstrate the ability of the resulting detection procedure to deal with difficult situations, in particular in the presence of noise, texture, and slanted or partial scratches. Comparisons show significant advantages over previous work.

Removing artefacts from color and contrast modifications.

This work is concerned with the modification of the gray level or color distribution of digital images. A common drawback of classical methods aiming at such modifications is the revealing of artefacts or the attenuation of details and textures. In this work, we propose a generic filtering method enabling, given the original image and the radiometrically corrected one, to suppress artefacts while preserving details. The approach relies on the key observation that artefacts correspond to spatial irregularity of the so-called transportation map, defined as the difference between the original and the corrected image. The proposed method draws on the nonlocal Yaroslavsky filter to regularize the transportation map. The efficiency of the method is shown on various radiometric modifications: contrast equalization, midway histogram, color enhancement, and color transfer. A comparison with related approaches is also provided.

Random phase textures: theory and synthesis.

This paper explores the mathematical and algorithmic properties of two sample-based texture models: random phase noise (RPN) and asymptotic discrete spot noise (ADSN). These models permit to synthesize random phase textures. They arguably derive from linearized versions of two early Julesz texture discrimination theories. The ensuing mathematical analysis shows that, contrarily to some statements in the literature, RPN and ADSN are different stochastic processes. Nevertheless, numerous experiments also suggest that the textures obtained by these algorithms from identical samples are perceptually similar. The relevance of this study is enhanced by three technical contributions providing solutions to obstacles that prevented the use of RPN or ADSN to emulate textures. First, RPN and ADSN algorithms are extended to color images. Second, a preprocessing is proposed to avoid artifacts due to the nonperiodicity of real-world texture samples. Finally, the method is extended to synthesize textures with arbitrary size from a given sample.

Indexing of satellite images with different resolutions by wavelet features.

Space agencies are rapidly building up massive image databases. A particularity of these databases is that they are made of images with different, but known, resolutions. In this paper, we introduce a new scheme allowing us to compare and index images with different resolutions. This scheme relies on a simplified acquisition model of satellite images and uses continuous wavelet decompositions. We establish a correspondence between scales which permits us to compare wavelet decompositions of images having different resolutions. We validate the approach through several matching and classification experiments, and we show that taking the acquisition process into account yields better results than just using scaling properties of wavelet features.

Resolution-independent characteristic scale dedicated to satellite images.

We study the problem of finding the characteristic scale of a given satellite image. This feature is defined so that it does not depend on the spatial resolution of the image. This is a different problem than achieving scale invariance, as often studied in the literature. Our approach is based on the use of a linear scale space and the total variation (TV). The critical scale is defined as the one at which the normalized TV reaches its maximum. It is shown experimentally, both on synthetic and real data, that the computed characteristic scale is resolution independent.