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BM3D Image Denoising using SSIM Optimized Wiener Filter

Mahmud Hasan, The University of Western Ontario

Supervisor: Dr. Mahmoud R. El-Sakka, The University of Western Ontario

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science degree in
Computer Science
© Mahmud Hasan 2014

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BM3D IMAGE DENOISING USING SSIM OPTIMIZED WIENER FILTER
(Thesis format: Monograph)

by

Mahmud Hasan

Graduate Program in Department of Computer Science

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Science

The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies

The University of Western Ontario
London, Ontario, Canada

c Mahmud Hasan 2014

 Abstract
Image denoising is considered as a salient pre-processing in sophisticated imaging applica-
tions. Over decades, numerous studies have been conducted in denoising. Recently proposed
Block Matching and 3D (BM3D) Filtering added a new dimension to the study of denoising.
BM3D is the current state-of-the-art of denoising and is capable of achieving better denoising
as compared to any other existing method. However, the performance is not yet on the bound
for image denoising. Therefore, there is scope to improve BM3D to achieve high quality de-
noising. In this thesis, to improve BM3D, we first attempted to improve Wiener filter (the core
of BM3D) by maximizing the Structural Similarity (SSIM) between the true and the estimated
image, instead of minimizing the Mean Square Error (MSE) between them. Moreover, for the
DC-Only BM3D profile, we introduced a 3D zigzag thresholding. Experimental results demon-
strate that regardless of the type of the image, our proposed method achieves better denoising
than that of BM3D.

Keywords: Image Denoising, Image Restoration, BM3D, Wiener Filter, Structural Simi-
larity, Collaborative Filtering, Hard Thresholding, Mean Square Error

ii
 Dedication

To my beloved wife

Maksuda Khatun
Who sacrificed her career to build up mine

iii
 Acknowledgments
At this happy moment, I would like to express my heartiest gratitude to the Almighty for the
strength, patience, intelligence and endless kindness he provided me with to finalize this thesis.

I am grateful to my honorable supervisor Dr. Mahmoud R. El-Sakka for his valuable direc-
tion, guidance, comments and encouragement throughout this work. It was an absolute honor
and privilege to work with such a modest and wise person like him. His wisdom and notable
thoughts have helped this thesis become an ultimate success. He redirected my view of thinking
to a progressive path every time I discussed my research problems with him. This dissertation
under his supervision will always be a remarkable experience in my life.

On the eve of my graduation, I would like to remember and broaden my delicate respect to
all the professors of The University of Western Ontario who helped me through many courses
to build my background for this dissertation. Without their sincere care, the understanding of
Image Processing fundamentals would have been impossible for me.

I acknowledge the support of my friends, family members, my loving mother and research
group members throughout this long tiring period. Their inspiration and encouragement strength-
ened me in my tough time to keep focused.

Finally, I would like to thank The Department of Computer Science at The University of West-
ern Ontario to fund my graduate study. I would also like to thank The Government of People’s
Republic of Bangladesh and The Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology that
provided me almost cost free education up to undergraduate and paved me a way for higher
studies.

iv
Contents

Abstract ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgments iv

List of Figures viii

List of Tables xii

List of Appendices xiv

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Thesis Contribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.5 Thesis Outline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Background Study 4
2.1 Noise and its Variants on Digital Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1.1 Additive Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Rayleigh Noise Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Gamma Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Exponential Noise Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 Multiplicative Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Salt and Pepper Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Speckle Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Periodic Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Image Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.1 Spatial Domain Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mean Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Median Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Min and Max Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Midpoint Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Gaussian Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

v
 Conservative Smoothing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Unsharp Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Laplacian of Gaussian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Frequency Domain Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Low Pass Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
High Pass Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Band Pass Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.3 Edge Preserving Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Anisotropic Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.4 Non Edge Preserving Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3 Image Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.1 Degradation Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.3.2 Estimation of Degradation Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.3 Effect of Degradation Function on Image Restoration . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3.4 Techniques of Image Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3.5 Inverse Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3.6 Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.4 Block Matching and 3D (BM3D) Filtering based Image Denoising . . . . . . . 20
2.4.1 Algorithm of BM3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
BM3D First Step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
BM3D Second Step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.4.2 Improvements over BM3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.4.3 Persisting Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Poor Performance of DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Choice of Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Parameterized Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Poor Performance for Higher Noise Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Poor Performance for Non Textured Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.4.4 Possible Improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

3 Methodology 24
3.1 Improvement Over Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.1 MSE Optimized Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.2 Structural Similarity (SSIM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.3 SSIM Optimized Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 Improvement Over BM3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2.1 DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3D Zigzag Based Thresholding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2.2 Wavelet Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Normal Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Fast Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2.3 Color Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4 Experimental Results and Analysis 32

4.1 Data Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

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 4.2 Performance Measurement Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.2.1 Objective Fidelity Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Structural Similarity (SSIM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.2.2 Subjective Fidelity Criteria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3 Improved Wiener Filter for Image Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.4 Improved Wiener Filter for Image Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.5 Improved BM3D for DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.5.1 Parameterized Setup for DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.5.2 With Improved Wiener Filter Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Non-Overlapping Similar Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.5.3 With 3D Zigzag Thresholding Only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Non-Overlapping Similar Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5.4 With Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding . . . . . . . 47
Non-Overlapping Similar Patches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.5.5 Effect of Gamma (γ) in 3D Zigzag Thresholding . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.5.6 Performance Bound for 3D Zigzag Thresholding . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.6 Improved BM3D for Wavelet Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.6.1 Parameterized Setup for Wavelet Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.6.2 Normal Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.6.3 Fast Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.7 Extension of Wavelet Profile for Color Image Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.8 Summary of Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.9 Intensity Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

5 Conclusion and Future Work 68

5.1 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.2 Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Bibliography 70

A Detail Objective Experimental Results 73

B Detail Subjective Experimental Results 86

Curriculum Vitae 123

vii
List of Figures

2.1 Distribution of AWGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 Example of Additive White Gaussian Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right:
AWGN Added with Zero Mean and 0.05 Variance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 Rayleigh Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 Example of Rayleigh Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Rayleigh Noise
Added with a = 0 and b = 0.10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.5 Gamma Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.6 Example of Gamma Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Gamma Noise
Added with a = 10 and b = 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.7 Example of Salt and Pepper Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Salt and
Pepper Added to Lena Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.8 Example of Speckle Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Speckle Noise
with Variance = 0.05. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.9 Example of Periodic Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Periodic Noise
Added to Lena Image. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.10 Example images. Left: Cameraman. Right: House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.11 Spectrum of The Images of Fig. 2.10. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.12 Restored Cameraman Image using Power Spectrum of Cameraman . . . . . . . 18
2.13 Restored Cameraman Image using Power Spectrum of House . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.14 BM3D Block Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

3.1 Effect of MSE on Brightness Increase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

3.2 Effect of MSE on Brightness Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.3 Hard Thresholding in DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4 ZigZag Thresholding in DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.5 ZigZag Ordering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4.1 Test Image Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.2 Average PSNR Comparison for Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3 Average SSIM Comparison for Denoising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.4 Average PSNR Comparison for Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.5 Average SSIM Comparison for Restoration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.6 Average PSNR Comparison with No Overlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . . 39
4.7 Average SSIM Comparison with No Overlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . . 39
4.8 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 39
4.9 Average PSNR Comparison with 50% OVerlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . 40

viii
4.10 Average SSIM Comparison with 50% OVerlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . 41
4.11 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 41
4.12 Average PSNR Comparison with 75% Overlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . 42
4.13 Average SSIM Comparison with 75% Overlapping for DC-Only Profile . . . . 43
4.14 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 43
4.15 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.16 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.17 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 45
4.18 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.19 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.20 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 46
4.21 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.22 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.23 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 48
4.24 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.25 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.26 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 51
4.27 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.28 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.29 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 52
4.30 Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.31 Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.32 Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output. . . . . . . . 55
4.33 Average PSNR Comparison of Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method 57
4.34 Average SSIM Comparison of Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method 57

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4.35 Subjective Measure for Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method . . . . 58
4.36 Average PSNR Comparison of Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method . . 60
4.37 Average SSIM Comparison of Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method . . 60
4.38 Subjective Measure for Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method . . . . . . 61
4.39 24 − bit True Color Images used for Color Image Denoising Experiments . . . 61
4.40 Average PSNR Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed
Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.41 Average SSIM Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed
Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.42 Subjective Measure for Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed Method 63
4.43 Average PSNR Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed
Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.44 Average SSIM Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed
Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.45 Subjective Measure for Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed Method . . 65
4.46 Lena Image for Intensity Profile Calculation. Red Line shows the Scan Line
taken as input to Intensity Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.47 Intensity Profile for the Scan Line shown in Fig. 4.46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
4.48 Intensity Profiles for BM3D and Proposed Method with respect to the True Image 67

B.1 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . 87

B.2 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . 88
B.3 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . 89
B.4 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . 90
B.5 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . 91
B.6 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . 92
B.7 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . 93
B.8 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . 94
B.9 Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . 95
B.10 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
B.11 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
B.12 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
B.13 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . 99
B.14 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . 100
B.15 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . 101
B.16 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . 102
B.17 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . 103
B.18 Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . 104
B.19 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
B.20 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
B.21 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . 107
B.22 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . 108
B.23 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . 109
B.24 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . 110
B.25 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . 111

x
B.26 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . 112
B.27 Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . 113
B.28 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
B.29 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
B.30 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
B.31 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
B.32 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
B.33 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
B.34 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
B.35 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
B.36 Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

xi
List of Tables

4.1 Average PSNR-SSIM Comparison of Wiener Filter for Denoising . . . . . . . 36

4.2 Average PSNR-SSIM Comparison of Wiener Filter for Restoration . . . . . . . 37
4.3 Parameterized Setup for BM3D DC-Only Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.6 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.7 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.8 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.9 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.10 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.11 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wienre Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.12 Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.13 Parameterized Setup for Wavelet Profile of BM3D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.14 Performance Comparison of Normal Profile with Proposed Method . . . . . . . 59
4.15 Performance Comparison of Fast Profile with Proposed Method . . . . . . . . . 59
4.16 Performance Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) with Proposed Method . . 62
4.17 Performance Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) with Proposed Method . . . . 65
4.18 Summary of Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

A.1 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

A.2 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
A.3 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
A.4 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
A.5 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
A.6 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
A.7 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
A.8 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

xii
A.9 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A.10 Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
A.11 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
A.12 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
A.13 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
A.14 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A.15 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A.16 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
A.17 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A.18 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A.19 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
A.20 Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A.21 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A.22 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A.23 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
A.24 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A.25 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A.26 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A.27 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
A.28 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
A.29 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
A.30 Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
A.31 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
A.32 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 20 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
A.33 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
A.34 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 40 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
A.35 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 50 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
A.36 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 60 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
A.37 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 70 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
A.38 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
A.39 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 90 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
A.40 Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

xiii
List of Appendices

Appendix A Detail Objective Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Appendix B Detail Subjective Experimental Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

xiv
Chapter 1

Introduction

A digital image is defined as a two dimensional discrete function f (i, j), where i and j are
spatial co-ordinates of the image f . (i, j) denotes a location of the image. The value of i and j
vary depending on the dimension of the image, however, the value of f (i, j) is limited between
0 − 255 for gray-scale images. The value of f (i, j) for any given i and j is called the intensity
of the image at location (i, j). The intensity is also known as brightness or pixel value of the
image.
There are a number of mechanical and electronic interference introduced during the image
acquisition process. Such interferences generate some unexpected or random brightness infor-
mation known as noise. For general purpose images, the noise may be negligible and often
ignored. However, there are sophisticated imaging applications where even the small amount
of noise makes further processing impossible. In such cases, reducing noise from the image
without much degrading the image quality is a challenging task. Image denoising is often con-
sidered as an important pre-processing step for applications like medical and satellite imaging,
image segmentation, object recognition and image classifications. Image denoising is a vast
and well studied area, yet there is scope and necessity for improvement.
In this chapter, we will address the extreme necessity of high quality image denoising,
briefly state our problem description and mention the objectives of this thesis. We will also
state the major contributions and outline of this thesis.

1.1 Motivations
There are different types of noise that can contaminate a digital image. Depending on the
noise type, there are various algorithms present in the literature for denoising the image. Block
Matching and 3D Filtering (BM3D) [1] is one such popular algorithm that reduces Additive
White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) [2] from digital images.
In terms of denoising performance, BM3D is considered as the best denoising filter so
far. It exhibits remarkable results as compared to other existing methods. BM3D works in
two identical steps. In first step, it generates a basic estimate of the noisy image using hard
thresholding. Then in the second step, it uses Wiener filter to actually denoise the noisy image.
To do so, BM3D uses the basic estimate generated from the first step as an oracle in the Wiener
filter.

1
Chapter 1. Introduction 2

Wiener filter is an age-old benchmark for image denoising and restoration [3]. This filter
needs a degradation function for denoising or restoration. The better the degradation function
is, the more denoising is achievable by Wiener filter. BM3D uses the basic estimated image
from the first step as the degradation function of Wiener filter. Thus the ultimate performance
of BM3D largely depends on how good the basic estimate is.
Although BM3D achieves good denoising performance, it is not sufficient to denoise highly
noisy images specially generated in sensitive applications like satellite imaging. In other words,
the performance of BM3D decreases with the increase of noise level. Again, among the differ-
ent profiles of BM3D (a profile is a specific set of parameters), the DC-Only profile (meaning
that the 3D transform used is the 3D-DCT) generally performs poorer than the others. There-
fore, there is scope to either propose better denoising technique than BM3D or to make BM3D
perform better than what it can currently do.

1.2 Problem Statement

Wiener filter [3] for degraded signal restoration was proposed more than 50 years ago, though
the use of Wiener filter in digital image processing was introduced later. Different researches
attempted to improve the performance of Wiener filter, however, they did not directly address
one persisting problem of Wiener filter that it uses an objective function MSE which is often
a misleading measure. In other words, we can use better measure than MSE as the objective
function of Wiener filter. Also, if Wiener filter can be improved, we can also improve the
performance of BM3D, since it uses Wiener filter as one of its fundamental components.
In this thesis, we will primarily focus on the improvement of Wiener filter. Then we will
use this improved Wiener filter in BM3D to improve its response as well. We will understand
throughout this thesis that our improved Wiener filter will eventually improve the performance
of all profiles of BM3D. In addition, we will also design some other components to improve
the performance of BM3D, specially the performance of DC-Only profile.

1.3 Objectives
This thesis has several objectives. Although improving the performance of BM3D is our major
objective, we have some other objectives as well in order to improve BM3D performance.
We will discuss a lot of details in this thesis, starting from the denoising background to high
level sparse collaborative filtering. However, we will keep the reader focused on the following
objectives that we will meet at the end of this thesis.

1. Improve the performance of Wiener filter for image denoising.

2. Improve the performance of Wiener filter for image restoration.

3. Improve the performance of DC-Only profile of BM3D.

4. Improve the performance of Wavelet (Normal and Fast) profile of BM3D.

5. Improve the performance of Color (Normal and Fast) profile of BM3D.

Chapter 1. Introduction 3

1.4 Thesis Contribution

The major contribution of this thesis is the improvement over the different profiles of the cur-
rent state of the art denoising algorithm BM3D. In achieving this, we also contribute to the
denoising/restoration benchmark Wiener filter. We propose an improved Wiener filter that es-
sentially works better in terms of denoising/restoration performance than the existing one. We
use this improved Wiener filter in BM3D. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed
method works considerably better than original BM3D, thus taking a further step towards the
performance bound of image denoising.
Moreover, there is no open-source BM3D code developed using Matlab. The only exe-
cutable Matlab code available online is provided by the authors of BM3D. Although there is
another C source code provided by Marc Lebrun [4], users and researchers of image denoising
from all over the world are still looking for an open-source Matlab code of BM3D which is
easier to use, edit, modify and execute. Therefore, in this thesis, we develop a Matlab source
code of BM3D. We made sure that the performance given by our developed code is a true copy
of the original BM3D before we performed the experiments. Development of this Matlab code
is another contribution of this thesis.

1.5 Thesis Outline

This thesis is outlined as follows.

In Chapter 2, we will discuss the image denoising in details. We will start from the scratch
of denoising and cover up to very recent studies of denoising. This chapter will provide the
reader a solid background with fundamental knowledge of image denoising and an overall idea
of how the current patch-based image denoising systems work.
In Chapter 3, we will present our proposed methods in detail. This chapter will also discuss
the effect of each of our proposals on the denoising performance.
We will discuss different experimental setup and their corresponding results in Chapter 4.
This chapter will prove that the objectives mentioned in Chapter 1 has been achieved. This
chapter covers only an average performance measure, the in-depth output and comparative
results are given in Appendix A and B.
Finally, we will extend our present idea for possible future works and drag conclusion in
Chapter 5.
Chapter 2

Background Study

Image denoising refers to reducing noise from digital images. Image denoising is an important
application since the captured digital images are often contaminated by different types of noise
due to a number of factors such as the performance of image sensors present at the captur-
ing devices and the environment condition while capturing the image. Almost all the image
processing applications require the image to be as noiseless as possible. Therefore, denoising
stands as a significant area of study in digital image processing.

In this chapter, we will review the types of noise present in digital images, existing denois-
ing techniques, degradation models and restoration techniques. We will also study the current
state of the art of image denoising techniques and its related literature.

2.1 Noise and its Variants on Digital Images

Generally, noise is a random change of spatial information such as brightness or color. There
are many variants of this randomness; however, they can roughly be classified into two groups-
additive and multiplicative.

2.1.1 Additive Noise

If the noise is independent of image signal and is superimposed upon the image, the noise is
considered as additive noise. Equation 2.1 gives the mathematical expression for this noise.

z(i, j) = y(i, j) + η(i, j) (2.1)

Here, the i and j are spatial coordinates for the image location, y(i, j) is the true image
signal and η(i, j) is the noise superimposed upon the image signal y(i, j). z(i, j) is the image
contaminated by additive noise.

There are many variants of additive noise. We will provide a brief introduction to them in
the following subsections.

4
Chapter 2. Background Study 5

Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN)

When the Fourier spectrum of the noise is constant, it is referred to as white. This noise follows
the Gaussian (normal) distribution [5] and its power spectral density is constant. Therefore this
noise is named AWGN [6]. The probability density function of a Gaussian random variable,
z, is given by Equation 2.2.
1 (z − µ)2
p(z) = √ e− (2.2)
2πσ 2σ2
In this equation, z represents gray level, µ is the mean of gray values and σ is the standard
deviation of the distribution. Generally, the standard deviation is not used for calculation of
white Gaussian noise, rather, a squared standard deviation (σ2 ), called variance, is used. The
white Gaussian noise is identically distributed and statistically independent of the image infor-
mation. The distribution of AWGN is shown in Fig. 2.1. If we apply this noise on the test
image Lena, we will have the output as shown in Fig. 2.2.

Figure 2.1: Distribution of AWGN

Since we will work with only AWGN throughout this study, for the rest of the part of this
thesis, the term noise will refer to AWGN unless specified otherwise.

Rayleigh Noise Distribution

The probability density function of Rayleigh distribution is given by Equation 2.3. Unlike
AWGN, its density is right skewed√ as shown in Fig. 2.3. The mean and variance of Rayleigh
distribution is given by µ = a + πb/4 and σ2 = b(4−π) 4
, respectively. An example of Rayleigh
noise on Lena image is shown in Fig. 2.4.
(z−a)2

 b2 (z − a)e− b
 for z ≥ a
p(z) = 

(2.3)
0 for z < a

Chapter 2. Background Study 6

Figure 2.2: Example of Additive White Gaussian Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right:
AWGN Added with Zero Mean and 0.05 Variance.

Figure 2.3: Rayleigh Distribution

Gamma Distribution

The Gamma noise is also known as Erlang noise. Like Rayleigh, this distribution is also right
skewed as shown in Fig. 2.5. The distribution is given by Equation 2.4. Gamma distribution
depends on two parameters a and b where, a must be greater than 0 and b is a positive integer.
The mean and variance of this distribution is given by µ = ab and σ2 = ab2 , respectively. An
example of gamma noise added to Lena image is shown in Fig. 2.6
Chapter 2. Background Study 7

Figure 2.4: Example of Rayleigh Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Rayleigh Noise
Added with a = 0 and b = 0.10.

 b b−1
a z
 (b−1)! e−az
 for z ≥ 0
p(z) = 

(2.4)
0
 for z < 0

Figure 2.5: Gamma Distribution

Exponential Noise Distribution

As indicated by the name, exponential noise is an exponential distribution or an exponential
function for all gray levels above or equal 0. This is basically a special case of Erlang(Gamma)
Chapter 2. Background Study 8

Figure 2.6: Example of Gamma Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Gamma Noise
Added with a = 10 and b = 2.

distribution with b = 1. For instance, let us consider Fig. 2.5 with b = 1. If b = 1, the dotted
line overlaps the p(z) axis thereby shifting the curve its left. Consequently, we get a downward
exponential distribution.

2.1.2 Multiplicative Noise

Multiplicative noise is the second major group of noise that may also contaminate a digital im-
age. Unlike additive noise, multiplicative noise is signal (i.e., image) dependent and multiplied
to the image [7]. In the following subsections, we will discuss a few common multiplicative
noise.

Salt and Pepper Noise

The salt and pepper noise is a kind of impulse noise, spreaded over the image intensity. It is
bipolar in nature, meaning that the noise is realized as two defined values- light dot or dark dot.
This noise is also known as shot or spike noise. Fig. 2.7. shows an example of salt and pepper
noise over the popular image Lena. The probability density function of salt and pepper noise
is given by Equation 2.5.




 Pa for z = a
p(z) =  for z = b

(2.5)

 Pb


0
 otherwise
Chapter 2. Background Study 9

Figure 2.7: Example of Salt and Pepper Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Salt and
Pepper Added to Lena Image.

Speckle Noise
Speckle noise is a grainy salt and pepper noise usually generated by Synthetic Aperture Radar
(SAR) or medical images. It is generally caused by the interaction of out of phase waves with
a target [8, 9]. The mathematical formulation of speckle noise is given by Equation 2.6 where
aR and aI are independent Gaussian with zero mean. An example of speckle noise is shown in
Fig. 2.8.

p(z) = aR + jaI (2.6)

Periodic Noise
Periodic noise is very common during image acquisition phase when there is electrical or elec-
tromechanical interference. In periodic noise, the image is seen to have certain repeated noise
pattern as shown in Fig. 2.9. This noise follows simple periodic patterns such as S ine or
Cosine as given in Equation 2.7, where x andy are discrete image dimensions and a and b are
two constants.
x y
p(z) = sin( + ) (2.7)
a b

2.2 Image Denoising

Numerous denoising techniques have been proposed over years. We can classify them in many
ways. One way to classify the denoising methods is to separate them into spatial denoising
Chapter 2. Background Study 10

Figure 2.8: Example of Speckle Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Speckle Noise with
Variance = 0.05.

Figure 2.9: Example of Periodic Noise. Left: Original Lena Image. Right: Periodic Noise
Added to Lena Image.

and spectral (frequency) denoising. Another way to classify them is to think as additive noise
filters and multiplicative noise filters. A final approach to separate them is to classify as edge
preserving and non-edge preserving denoising. We will start discussing the filters based on
their working domain, i.e., whether they work in spatial domain or frequency domain. Then
we will summarize them according to whether they preserve edges or not.
Chapter 2. Background Study 11

2.2.1 Spatial Domain Denoising

In this class of denoising, an image is denoised in spatial domain, based on the statistics of
spatial information. Spatial domain denoising is better in the sense that it reduces the cost of
domain transformation. However, since it is based on only spatial statistics, there is no other
information considered. Therefore, there is always possibility to treat one intensity value in a
wrong way.

Mean Filter

This is one of the simplest and oldest method of spatial denoising. The idea, as suggested by
the name, is to replace a particular intensity value by the mean (arithmetic average) of all the
intensity values within a given n × n kernel (window) centered at the pixel being denoised,
where the typical value of n can be 3, 5 or 7. Mean filter smooths the image, i.e., reduces the
variation of image intensities. This filter is very effective in reducing impulse noise.

There are many variations of mean filter present in the literature such as Geometric Mean
Filter, Harmonic Mean Filter and Contra-harmonic Mean Filter. We will not cover them here,
for further reading about these filters, we refer the reader to [6, 10].

Median Filter

Median filter is similar to Mean Filter, except that the pixel being denoised is replaced by the
median value of the window pixels. Although similar, median filter is considered often better
as it can preserve more image detai than mean filter. This is because, since it is not taking the
arithmetic average of the kernel pixels, there is less probability that it will create unrealistic
pixel values on the edges. It is better than Mean filter also in the sense that it will never be
affected by a single unrepresentative pixel value.

Median filter belongs to a class of filters known as Order Statistics Filters. This is because,
like Median, these filters attempts to reduce noise from spatial information based on some kind
of ordering. Other filters of this class includes Min Filter, Max Filter and Midpoint Filter [6].

Min and Max Filter

Min and Max filters are used to filter the darkest and brightest intensities of an image, thus
reducing salt and pepper noise. Min and Max filters are given by Equations 2.8 and 2.9 respec-
tively. In both equations, g(s, t) is the window taken from noisy image with s and t being the
window (local) co-ordinates.

fˆ(x, y) = min{g(s, t)} (2.8)

fˆ(x, y) = max{g(s, t)} (2.9)

Chapter 2. Background Study 12

Midpoint Filter
The Midpoint filter is best for reducing randomly distributed noise such as Gaussian noise. The
midpoint filter finds the midpoint between the maximum and minimum intensity value within
the given kernel or window. This filter is defined in Equation 2.10.

1
fˆ(x, y) = [max{g(s, t)} + min{g(s, t)}] (2.10)
2

Gaussian Smoothing
Gaussian smoothing is another popular spatial domain filter that is generally used to blur the
image, thus removing the noise as well as the image details. Like Mean and Median filter, it
also uses a kernel, however, it is different in the sense that the kernel is generated to represent a
Gaussian bell shaped hump. Then kernel is convolved with the same size image block in order
to perform the smoothing. The Gaussian smoothing function that is used to generate the kernel
is given by Equation 2.11.

1 − x2 +y22
G(x, y) = e 2σ (2.11)
2πσ2

Conservative Smoothing
This technique is used to remove spikes or shot noise such as salt and pepper noise. The
concept behind conservative smoothing is very simple, it considers that the noise should be of
very high frequency as compared to the neighboring intensity values. Hence, it tries to provide
a minimum and maximum bound for the pixels within a given window and then suppress
any intensity value that goes beyond the upper and lower bound. Since it does not perform
averaging or block-wise convolution, it preserves image details and edges really good.

Unsharp Filter
Unsharp filter is a sharpening operator in spatial domain. The main purpose of using an unsharp
filter is to enhance edges and details. This filter achieves sharpening through the following op-
erations.

First, this filter produces an edge image g(x, y) from the input image f (x, y) according to
Equation 2.12. Prior doing so, it must also produce a smooth image using any smoothing
operator.

g(x, y) = f (x, y) − f smooth (x, y) (2.12)

Finally, the sharp version f sharp is generated using Equation 2.13. k is a scaling factor used
in Equation 2.13, where a higher value indicates more sharpness. Typical values of k varies
between 0.2 to 0.7.

f sharp (x, y) = f (x, y) + k × g(x, y) (2.13)

Chapter 2. Background Study 13

Laplacian of Gaussian
Like unsharp filter, Laplacian operator (also known as Laplacian of Gaussian) is used to en-
hance edges rather than enhancing the whole image. It is often used for edge detection, how-
ever, this can also be studied in image denoising since it enhances edges and details.

Laplacian is defined as the 2nd derivative of the image intensity. It is defined as Equation
2.14. If we omit the y portion of this equation, it will give the edge information only along x
axis and vice-versa.

δ2 I δ2 I
L(x, y) = + (2.14)
δx2 δy2
Because the digital image is a 2D discrete data, we should find a discrete approximation of
the Laplacian operator in order to find the edges from an image or enhance the edges.

2.2.2 Frequency Domain Denoising

Spatial domain denoising tries to remove noise based on the spatial statistics. However, it is
often easier to detect and remove noise if the intensity values are transferred to a different
domain such as frequency domain. If a suitable kernel can be obtained, all frequency domain
denoising can also be performed in spatial domain with less computational cost.
In frequency domain, both edge preserving and non edge preserving ideas can be imple-
mented in the form of low frequency attenuation (low pass filter) and high frequency attenua-
tion (high pass filter) respectively. In general, the frequency domain denoising follows Equa-
tion 2.15. F(k, l) is the input image f (x, y) transformed to frequency domain. H(k, l) is the
denoising filter which is multiplied with the transformed image F(k, l). Finally, the operation
produces the denoised image G(k, l).

G(k, l) = F(k, l) × H(k, l) (2.15)

Low Pass Filter

Low pass filter is one of the basic frequency domain denoising filter. The idea is to let the
low frequency values pass through the filter while attenuating the high frequency values. As
a result, the final denoised image is smooth. It is equivalent to smoothing in spatial domain,
since the high frequency means intensity change in spatial domain. Therefore, it is not edge
preserving technique.

The simplest low pass filter is called ideal low pass filter. It hinders all high frequencies
above a threshold called cut-off frequency. The ideal low pass filter can be thought as Equation
2.16.
 √
1 if √k2 + l2 < fcut−o f f

H(k, l) = 

(2.16)
0 if k2 + l2 > fcut−o f f

Chapter 2. Background Study 14

High Pass Filter

High pass filter is similar to low pass filter, except that it attenuates low frequencies while
passing high frequencies. Since flat region in the spatial domain corresponds to low frequencies
in frequency domain, this filter preserves edges. Like low pass filter, this filter also has an
ideal state which can also be described by the Equation 2.16 with the relational operators
interchanged.

Band Pass Filter

A combination of low pass and high pass filter produce a band pass filter. Here, all high and
low frequencies are attenuated and only a range of frequencies are allowed to pass through.
Thus, it provides a band range for the image frequencies.

2.2.3 Edge Preserving Denoising

From the discussion of Section 2.2.1 and 2.2.2, we know that there are some denoising tech-
niques in both spatial and frequency domain that preserve edges while the others are not sensi-
tive to edges. For example- Median Filter, Conservative Filter, Unsharp Filter, Laplacian Filter
and High Pass Filter are all edge preserving denoising techniques. In this section, we will
discuss a more robust edge preserving denoising technique.

Anisotropic Diffusion
This idea was first suggested by Perona and Malik in [11]. We know that, in general, a noisy
image is blurred using Gaussian Kernel to reduce noise from it. Typical techniques for noise
reduction do so by isotropic diffusion, meaning that it does not preserve edges while blurring
the noisy image. It just tries to average each pixel by its surrounding pixel values. As a result,
the noises are removed but some edges are removed as well. Consequently, it becomes hard,
if not impossible, to say where the true edges were actually located. For example, when we
try to detect edges from a noisy image, many false edges (which are noise) are detected. If we
blur (denoise) the image first and then try to detect edges, false edges are removed; however,
some true edges are also removed. This is due to the generalized blurring applied to the whole
image.
To resolve this issue, Perona-Malik suggests that any smoothing/blurring algorithm should
have the following criteria-

1. Causality

2. Immediate Localization

3. Piecewise Smoothing

They propose an algorithm for denoising an image where the edges are not removed as in
Gaussian as a result of blurring. They came up with two key ideas to propose such a smoothing
function:
Chapter 2. Background Study 15

1. Using non linear smoothing instead of using liner smoothing/blurring

2. Using anisotropic diffusion instead of using isotropic diffusion.

Unlike linear smoothing, Non Linear Smoothing does not just treat each pixel with the
same convolution. Rather, it tries to convolve each pixel with varying intensity. In other words,
if a pixel is an edge-pixel, it applies little or no blurring and if it is not an edge-pixel, it applies
more blurring. This idea removes the noises of intra-region i.e. removes noises from the image
except edges. Simply stated, it blurs the whole image except the edges. However, since this
process works only intra-region, not inter-region, edges stay rough as it was.
Later, to make the edges smooth, we have to apply Anisotropic Diffusion. In this diffusion
technique, we are not directly taking the Laplacian of an image (divergence of gradient of the
image). Instead, we are introducing a new function g() multiplied by the gradient of the image
and take the divergence of the result. The function g() calculates the amount of diffusion to be
applied on the edges. If it is a strong edge, it doesn’t diffuse much. If it is a weak edge (or
noise), it diffuses the edge.
To conclude, the idea proposed by Perona-Malik is ideal for noise reduction from images
and better than the typical noise reduction methods that make use of blurring in order to reduce
noises. In other words, this idea is ideal for detecting edges from noisy images.

2.2.4 Non Edge Preserving Denoising

There are many denoising methods that do not preserve edges. These methods are also referred
to as isotropic, meaning that it treats all pixel values equally regardless of whether they belong
to edge or area. As discussed earlier, Gaussian Smoothing and Low Pass Filter are two popular
non edge preserving denoising methods.

2.3 Image Restoration

Image restoration is another area of image processing which is closely related to denoising.
Image restoration and image denoising are similar in the sense that both try to produce better
quality image from some degraded images. However, the difference is visible only when we
understand how enhancement/denoising and restoration are performed in practice.

2.3.1 Degradation Model

The point that makes the big difference between image enhancement and restoration is the
usage of an extra degradation function. In Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 we have seen a number of
spatial and frequency domain enhancement techniques. All of them could be computed without
the help of outside knowledge. For example, to calculate mean, median or bandpass filter all
we need to have is the noisy image only.
What if we try to denoise an image based on a mathematical model that gives us more
information about how the image was degraded? Studies proved that having a mathematical
model of how the image was degraded, we can design filters that can approximate an image
which is more acceptable and less erroneous. This idea is what we define as Image Restoration.
Chapter 2. Background Study 16

2.3.2 Estimation of Degradation Function

We understand that a degradation function (often denoted by H in denoising/restoration litera-
ture) helps the process of quality enhancement improve significantly. But how can we estimate
the degradation model? There are three possibilities available [6].
1. Estimation by Observation
2. Estimation by Experimentation
3. Estimation by Modeling
Estimation by observation assumes that no prior knowledge about degradation model is
provided. Once the degraded image is received, it tries to estimate the degradation function
from the image itself.
If we have access to the equipments that are used to acquire the degraded function, we can
estimate an accurate replica of the degraded image. If we can acquire a close replica, then
we can estimate a model of the degradation by comparing these two images. Estimation of
degradation function through this process is called estimation by experimentation.

The most common practice in estimating degradation function is estimation by modeling.

This is completely mathematical formulation that is derived assuming to solve some basic im-
age acquisition problems such as motion blur created due to movement of camera between
shutter open and closed. This method is most robust and reliable in the sense that the back-
ground behind it is purely mathematical.

2.3.3 Effect of Degradation Function on Image Restoration

Since there are different ways to estimate the degradation function, it is obvious that the degra-
dation functions obtained through each of the discussed techniques for the same image will not
provide same quality restoration.

In this subsection, we will see how different degradation function responds to image restora-
tion process. The images present in this subsection are reproduced from the experiments con-
ducted in [12].

Let us consider two images cameraman and house in Fig. 2.10 for our discussion. Let us
also consider their corresponding power spectrum in Fig. 2.11. Our target is to restore the
Cameraman image using these power spectrum. To do so, we will first blur the Cameraman
image and then try to restore the image.
For restoration, we now have two estimates available- one is the power spectrum of camera-
man itself and the other is the power spectrum of house image. Fig. 2.12 shows the cameraman
image restored using the power spectrum of itself and Fig. 2.13 shows the restored cameraman
using the power spectrum of house image.
Although there can be found no visual distinction between these two images with bare
human eyes, the PSNR of the 2.12 is higher than the PSNR of 2.13. That is, we can say that-
better the degradation function, better the restoration output.
Chapter 2. Background Study 17

Figure 2.10: Example images. Left: Cameraman. Right: House

(a) Spectrum of Camera Image (b) Spectrum of House Image

Figure 2.11: Spectrum of The Images of Fig. 2.10.

2.3.4 Techniques of Image Restoration

Generally, estimation by modeling can be used to restore a degraded image without any prior
knowledge about the degradation function since it is based on some mathematical assumption.
Also, it is not practical to estimate different degradation function for each image. Therefore, we
will only focus on the degradation process that are obtained through mathematical modeling.
In this subsection, we will discuss two frequency domain filters that are commonly used
for image restoration. The filters assume that the mathematical degradation model is available
while applying them to restore images.
Chapter 2. Background Study 18

Figure 2.12: Restored Cameraman Image using Power Spectrum of Cameraman

Figure 2.13: Restored Cameraman Image using Power Spectrum of House

2.3.5 Inverse Filter

The inverse filter [13] computes an estimate of the original image in the transformed domain
by dividing the transformed of the degraded image by the degradation function. Equation
Chapter 2. Background Study 19

2.17 shows the relation where F̂(u, v) is the Fourier transform of the input image f (x, y) and
G(u, v) is the Fourier transform of the degraded image g(x, y). As noted earlier, H(u, v) is the
degradation function. Examining the Equation 2.17, we realize that the inverse filter does not
have provision to deal with noise. Rather, it only works with restoration.

G(u, v)
F̂(u, v) = (2.17)
H(u, v)

2.3.6 Wiener Filter

Wiener filter provides an opportunity to deal with both noises and degradation. This feature
makes the Wiener filter unique in both image denoising and restoration.
Wiener filter is also called Minimum Mean Square Error. This is because the core idea
behind Wiener filter is to satisfy an objective function which is the Mean Square Error (MSE).
In other words, Wiener filter guarantees that the image restored by Wiener Filter fˆ will have
minimum MSE with respect to original uncorrupted image f . Equation 2.18 shows that the
expectation of Wiener filter is to have minimum MSE between f and fˆ.

e2 = E( f − fˆ)2 (2.18)

The Wiener filter is defined by Equation 2.19. Note that all terms are given in transformed
domain. Here, H(u, v) is the degradation function, H ∗ (u, v) is conjugate complex of H(u, v), S n
is the power spectrum of noise and is defined as S n = |N(u, v)|2 , S f is the power spectrum of
undegraded image and is defined as S f = |F(u, v)|2 . G(u, v) is the transform of the degraded
image and F̂(u, v) is the final estimate for the restored image. Once we make inverse transform
of F̂(u, v), we will have fˆ(x, y) which is the denoised/restored approximation for original image
f (x, y).

H ∗ (u, v)
F̂(u, v) = G(u, v) (2.19)
|H(u, v)|2 + Sn
Sf

From Equation 2.19, we can solve for G(u, v) as in Equation 2.20 and rewrite Equation 2.20
as in equation 2.21. Now, if the noise is zero, the term inside square brackets in 2.21 becomes
1, which means the Wiener filter is reduced to Inverse filter and works for only restoration.
However, if there is noise, Wiener filter incorporates itself for removal of noise along with
restoration. This is what makes the Wiener filter unique.

H ∗ (u, v)S f (u, v))

G(u, v) = (2.20)
|H(u, v)|2 S f (u, v) + S n (u, v)

 
1  |H(u, v)|2 
G(u, v) =   (2.21)
H(u, v) |H(u, v)|2 + S n (u,v) 
S f (u,v)
Chapter 2. Background Study 20

2.4 Block Matching and 3D (BM3D) Filtering based Image

Denoising
In recent years, probably the most discussed denoising technique is Block Matching and 3D
Filtering (BM3D) denoising technique [1]. It was first suggested by K. Dabov et al. in 2007.
Later, it was rigorously reviewed in [4]. The idea has become extensively popular in denois-
ing over last few years. BM3D achieves excellent performance for reducing AWGN. In this
section, we will study BM3D and its possible variants. We will also present the persisting
problems of BM3D and try to find if there is any solution to those problems.

2.4.1 Algorithm of BM3D

The discussion of BM3D should be better started with a step by step discussion of its algorithm.
Let’s start with Fig. 2.14 that shows the flow chart of BM3D [1, 14].

Figure 2.14: BM3D Block Diagram

BM3D takes the concept of Non-Local Means (NLM) published in 2005 [15] in the sense
that it also attempts denoising based on finding similar patches within a given window. BM3D
has two identical steps namely step 1 and step 2. They are identical in the sense that they have
no operational difference, the difference lies in the component that are used for two steps. For
example, first step uses hard thresholding while second step uses Wiener filtering. Other than
that, both steps are same. BM3D basically tries to denoise the noisy image in the first step to
generate a basic estimate. This basic estimate is used in Wiener filtering of the second step as
an oracle (i.e. degradation model) [1].

BM3D First Step

In step one, BM3D starts its operation by dividing the noisy image into a number of blocks
or patches. For each patch, it then generates a window centering the block being processed.
BM3D defines this center patch as reference patch. Then within this window, BM3D looks
for the patches similar to the reference patch. Usually, a good number of similar patches are
found. BM3D defines a threshold that decides whether two patches are similar or not. Once
Chapter 2. Background Study 21

the similar patches are found, BM3D stacks all the similar patches together thus building a 3D
block, where the first patch is the reference patch and others patches are sorted according to
their distance to the reference patch. BM3D allows a number of 3D transform techniques to
transform the domain from spatial to frequency (as indicated by 3D Transform in Fig. 2.14).
After the 3D transform is performed, the most important part of the first step, known as hard
thresholding, is executed. Hard thresholding is nothing but a filter that allows all coefficients
above a certain threshold and converts the remaining to zero. This is the only operation is first
step that performs denoising, the rest are only to make a platform for hard thresholding. After
hard thresholding, BM3D tries to generate a basic estimate. For this, it needs to transform the
block coefficients to intensity values in spatial domain. This is known as inverse 3D transform.
After performing inverse 3D transform what we get is the 3D block that we started working
with. But this time it is denoised. Now, for each patch in the 3D block, we have to make an
aggregation to have the estimation for the reference patch the block is containing. The aggre-
gation part is simply taking different weights and making estimate for each pixel. Once the
aggregation is done, we have our basic estimate to start the second step.

In theory, it is obvious that the more patches are present in the 3D block, the more estimates
we will have for one single pixel and the more denoised basic estimate we will have. However,
in practice, it is seen that after a certain number of similar patches, BM3D does not seem to
perform better.

BM3D Second Step

The second step is similar to first step with two small differences. First, the 3D grouping is now
performed on basic estimate that we obtained from first step, not on the noisy image as in step
1. Second, we are not using hard thresholding any more after 3D transform. Instead, we will
now use Wiener filter. From the discussion of Section 2.3.4, we know that Wiener filter needs
a degradation function H() to work. In BM3D, the 3D group built on the basic estimate is
considered as the degradation function for BM3D while the corresponding 3D group of noisy
image is the degraded image function G().

Equation 2.22 shows how the Wiener filter works in BM3D. Here, Pbasic (P)(ξ) is the 3D
block from the basic image and P(P) is the corresponding 3D block from the noisy image.
τwien
3D denotes the 3D transformation for Wiener filter phase. Once we compute the inverse 3D
transform of 2.22, we get Pwien (P) which is the final estimate for one block. Once we get the
estimate, we perform a weighted aggregation operation like step one to start building the final
denoised image.

2
τwien
3D P
basic
(P)(ξ)
ω p (ξ) = 2
· τwien
3D P(P) (2.22)
τwien
3D P
basic (P)(ξ) + σ2

Comparing Equation 2.22 with Equation 2.19, we can see that both equations are exactly
same except that Equation 2.22 works with 3D data.
Chapter 2. Background Study 22

2.4.2 Improvements over BM3D

BM3D achieves better Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) (this measure is defined in Section
4.2.1) as compared to any existing image denoising methods. There is no denoising algorithm
present in the literature that can beat BM3D. So, it is natural to think if there is any improve-
ment possible over BM3D. In 2010, Chatterjee et al. [16] attempted to find the answer where
they defined the lower bound for MSE and ultimately reported that still, improvements over
BM3D is possible. In other words, there are denoising methods yet to be invented that will
reach the lower bound and hence make denoising dead.
Harold et al. [17] came with the concept of learning based denoising and compared their
results with BM3D. For some images, they achieved better PSNR as compared to BM3D,
however, for many images they could not beat BM3D. They reported that if the image contains
repetitive pattern BM3D gives extra ordinary performance. This is because, images contain-
ing texture or repetitive patterns should produce more similar patches, therefore, BM3D can
produce more estimates and weights for each pixel resulting a clear improvement on the final
estimate.
Zhang et al. [18] tried to select the similar patches based on the concept that initially they
will choose all similar blocks based on MSE, then from those selected blocks they will only
take those that have higher SSIM [19] with respect to the reference block. They could achieve
some PSNR for higher noise levels only.
Dabov et al. [1], who proposed BM3D first, further extended their methods beyond only
gray scale image denoising. They provided extension for color images [20], for gray and
color video denoising [21]. The also proposed a new denoising concept named BM4D [22]
where a 4D group is formed from 3D block of volumetric elements or voxels. They performed
numerous experiments of their methods to compare with other existing denoising standards
such as NLM.
Some studies as in [23] proposed completely new ideas those are patch based as in BM3D
or Non-Local Means. However, they finally end up with lower performance as compared to
BM3D. One came with the almost same idea as we are using, however, with the difference that
they proposed a SSIM based Non-Local Means filter, not BM3D [24].

2.4.3 Persisting Limitations

We studied the BM3D image denoising in detail and discovered that there still persist a few
limitations that can be taken into consideration. In this subsection, we will report those limita-
tions and suggest possible solutions to them.

Poor Performance of DC-Only Profile

BM3D has several profiles based on the parameters chosen. One of them is DC-Only meaning
that a 3D Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is use for the 3D transform part of BM3D. Since
the DCT results in DC and AC coefficients in transform domain and the DC coefficient preserve
the block information, the hard thresholding cannot be performed on DC coefficient. Again,
beside preserving the block information, DC coefficient also preserves noise information from
Chapter 2. Background Study 23

the block, therefore the final outcome of DC-only profile is poorer than other (wavelet and
color) profiles where a combination of 2D DCT and 1D Wavelet or 3D wavelet is used.

Choice of Wiener Filter

BM3D uses the benchmark denoising/restoration Wiener filter in second step. The time Wiener
filter was introduced in literature, there was no better similarity measures available, therefore
MSE was used as the objective function in Wiener filter. However, lately there are better
similarity measures such as SSIM [19].

Parameterized Setup
Regardless the type of transform used, BM3D keeps fixed set of parameter. However, every
transform has its own energy compaction technique. Therefore, using same parameterized
setup for all types of transform should be taken into consideration of rigorous review. In the
subsequent chapters, we will discuss the parameterized setup in more details.

Poor Performance for Higher Noise Levels

BM3D has poor response to images corrupted by higher level of noise as compared to its
response to images corrupted by lower level of noise.

Poor Performance for Non Textured Images

For non textured images, BM3D has poor response as compared to its response to textured
image. This is probably because if a noise is textured, there are a lot of repetitive patterns that
help the BM3D find more similar blocks. However, for non textured images, there are less
similar blocks, sometimes even not sufficient blocks. Therefore, BM3D responses poor for this
case.

2.4.4 Possible Improvements

Based on the discussion of Section 2.4.3 and the review of [16], we can say that, still there is
scope to improve BM3D. In this study, we will primarily focus on the poor performance of DC-
Only profile and try to find a solution for this problem. We will also focus on the improvement
of Wiener filter in order to eventually improve BM3D performance, regardless of the type of
the transformation and profile. We will present the solutions to these problems and examine
their potentials in the next chapter.
Chapter 3

Methodology

Having built a solid background of the noise types and the denoising methods in Chapter 2, we
are now ready to explain our methodology in details. We start this chapter by discussing the
persisting problems of Wiener filter. We then theoretically propose an improved Wiener filter.
Afterwards, we explain the improvements we propose for BM3D. We suggest an improved
Wiener filter and a 3D zigzag thresholding to do so.

3.1 Improvement Over Wiener Filter

From Section 2.3.6, we have come to know that Wiener filter is a nearly optimal frequency
domain filter that is capable of achieving both image denoising and degradation. The only
problem with this filter is that it requires a degradation function which is often unknown in
the real world. In this section, we review Wiener filter rigorously, report the cause for its
performance limitations and finally propose an improved Wiener filter.

3.1.1 MSE Optimized Wiener Filter

As stated in Section 2.3.6, Wiener filter tries to minimize its objective function shown in Equa-
tion 2.18 while denoising/restoring a degraded image. This function is also known as Mean
Square Error (MSE) as defined in Equation 3.1.
m−1 n−1
1 XX
MS E = ˆ j)]2
[I(i, j) − I(i, (3.1)
m × n i=0 j=0

In this equation, I and Iˆ are considered as the true noise free image and the reconstructed
(or denoised) image, respectively. Now, the less the difference between these two is, the closer
the images are. Also, more closeness indicates more accurately denoised image. With this
fundamental property, MSE has been being used as an image quality measurement metric since
long [25].
Wiener filter (Equation 2.19) guarantees that the denoised/restored image is the closest
image possible to the true undegraded image, since this filter is optimized for MSE. We might
conclude at this point, because, in ideal case Wiener filter may reconstruct an image whose

24
Chapter 3. Methodology 25

MSE with respect to the true image is zero. That is, both images are exactly same! However,
there are other sides of MSE, too that prevent Wiener filter from achieving more accurate and
perfect results.

3.1.2 Structural Similarity (SSIM)

Wang et al. [19] showed that although MSE is a good quality measure, it is sometimes seri-
ously misleading. This is because MSE does not consider anything other than the point-to-point
distance [26]. For example, if we add a constant value to all the pixel value of an image just
to increase its brightness, the images are visually exactly same, however, MSE still generates
a huge error because of point-to-point distance measurement. Fig. 3.1 shows such an example
of misleading of MSE measure.

Figure 3.1: Effect of MSE on Brightness Increase

In this figure, we used the well-known Lena image on the left and added a constant 30 to
all of its pixel values in order to increase its brightness. The brightened image is shown in
right side of the figure. Although there is no visual distortion in the image, the calculated MSE
between them is 899.8470 ≈ 900. This value is not negligible, neither we can consider MSE
as a true error measure.
Now let us also consider Fig. 3.2. This is similar to Fig. 3.1 except that now we have not
just added a positive constant to all brightness level, instead, if the brightness value is below
150, we added −30 to it and +30 otherwise. Due to the square term present in Equation 3.1,
MSE still generates the same error value (900) as in Fig. 3.1, however, visually the right side
image of Fig. 3.2 is much distorted as compared to that of Fig. 3.1.
To avoid such misleading error measure, Wang et al. [19] proposed that modern image
quality measurement metrics should not depend only on point-to-point distance, it should also
consider the geometric or structural similarity between the images. Otherwise, there is possibil-
ity to have same error results for different images as discussed now. Thus they proposed a new
Chapter 3. Methodology 26

Figure 3.2: Effect of MSE on Brightness Change

error measurement metric called Structural Similarity (SSIM). Their proposed error measure
SSIM is defined in Equation 3.2.

(2µ x µy + c1 )(2σ xy + c2 )
S S I M(x, y) = (3.2)
(µ2x + µ2y + c1 )(σ2x + σ2y + c2 )
In this equation, x and y denote two blocks of the same position from the true image and
the reconstructed image. µ x and µy denote the arithmetic mean or average of x and y blocks,
respectively. σ2x and σ2y indicate the variance of x and y blocks, respectively while σ x y is the
co-variance between x and y. c1 and c2 are two variables to stabilize the division with weak
denominator and their values are calculated using Equations 3.3 and 3.4, respectively. Here, L
is the dynamic range of the image and k1 and k2 are two constants whose values are k1 = 0.01
and k2 = 0.03, respectively [19, 26].

c1 = (k1 L)2 (3.3)

c2 = (k2 L)2 (3.4)

This measure is calculated block by block. Therefore, a mean of all blocks is used to
represent the final SSIM index value for the whole image. The SSIM index generally varies
between −1 to +1 which is often taken as absolute to avoid the negativity issue. Thus, the SSIM
index is a fractional number between 0 and 1 (inclusive), where a 0 indicates no similarity and
a 1 indicates exact similarity between two images. Using this measure, we have 0.9650 and
0.7850 for Fig. 3.1 and Fig. 3.2, respectively, which indicates that the right side image in Fig.
3.2 is much more distorted than that of Fig. 3.1. This distortion was overlooked by MSE.
There are other misleading measures of MSE, however, we will not cover them in this
thesis. For a detail list of misleading characteristics of MSE, we refer the reader to [19], [26],
Chapter 3. Methodology 27

[27] and [28].

3.1.3 SSIM Optimized Wiener Filter

From the discussion of Section 3.1.2, it has been clear that the MSE is not good for assessing
the closeness between two images, it is rather good for assessing the distance between them.
Instead, the SSIM is a more acceptable alternative. This is because, MSE deals with image data
while SSIM deals with image information. Now, if we have a better closeness measurement
metric, why shouldn’t we optimize the Wiener filter using this metric, instead of MSE?
The optimization of one denoising filter by SSIM instead of MSE is not very recent. Chan-
nappayya et al. in [29, 30] showed that any linear filter can be optimized for SSIM. They
compared their proposed SSIM optimized filter’s result with MSE optimized Wiener filter.
Their reported results showed that they were able to achieve higher SSIM value with respect
to MSE optimized Wiener filter, however, their PSNR gain was still poor than MSE optimized
Wiener filter. Therefore, there is scope to propose an SSIM optimized Wiener filter.
Our proposed SSIM optimized Wiener filter considers the structural similarity between the
reconstructed image and the true image. Since higher SSIM index indicates more similar im-
ages, our goal is to estimate an image which has maximum possible SSIM. In this case, the
expectation function of Wiener filter becomes Equation 3.5 which we now need to maximize.
In this equation, E is the expectation and f and fˆ are the true and reconstructed images, re-
spectively.

e = E{ssim( f, fˆ)} (3.5)

Having defined the expectation function, our target is to ensure that our designed Wiener
filter maximizes our expectation. Taking a careful look at Equation 2.19, we realize that re-
placing the term SS nf by a variable K is reasonable and finding a suitable value of K is possible
[6]. Therefore, for our proposed case, we can start with the lowest possible value of K and
loop through the highest possible value of K. For each K, we record the SSIM error measure
in a vector and then restores the image using that K for which the error has been recorded
maximum. Thus, for a given range of noise level, it is guaranteed that our proposed Wiener
filter should be SSIM optimized. Likewise, it should also provide better denoising and restora-
tion. As explained in Chapter 4, we will see that this idea in effect improves the Wiener filter’s
performance.

3.2 Improvement Over BM3D

From the discussion of Section 2.4.1, we know that BM3D works in two identical steps. Both
the steps are similar except that in second step, BM3D uses Wiener filter instead of hard thresh-
olding.

3.2.1 DC-Only Profile

The performance of BM3D varies depending on the type of transformation used in both steps.
There are two major profiles of BM3D- DC-Only profile and Wavelet profile. In DC-Only
Chapter 3. Methodology 28

profile, BM3D uses three dimensional Discrete Cosine Transform as 3D transform. For the
Wavelet profile, on the other hand, BM3D uses a combination of 2D Bi-orthogonal transform
and 1D Haar or Walsh-Hadamard Transform. DC-Only profile generally produces poorer result
as compared to its Wavelet counterpart [1, 31].
Discrete Cosine Transform preserves the average information in its DC Coefficient [32]. If
the image is noisy, beside preserving the average image information, it also preserves the noise
information in the DC Coefficient. Also, when the hard thresholding is performed, it is done on
only AC Coefficients, not on the DC Coefficient in order to avoid average image information
loss. Thus, DC Coefficient preserves some noise information along with the image information
even after hard thresholding. This is why DC-Only profile performs poorer than the Wavelet
profile.
We propose two different improvements over BM3D. First, we propose to replace the
Wiener filter of BM3D by our already improved Wiener filter. This improvements will be used
regardless of the type of profile used for BM3D. Second, we propose a 3D zigzag thresholding
only for the DC-Only profile.

3D Zigzag Based Thresholding

Before starting our discussion of 3D zigzag thresholding, we would like to review the hard
thresholding step of BM3D. This will help the reader understand the impact and technique of
3D zigzag thresholding.

Figure 3.3: Hard Thresholding in DC-Only Profile

It is obvious that the surprisingly better result produced by BM3D is completely depends
on a couple of things, including- (1) how accurately you can group the similar blocks, (2) how
better the basic estimate is and (3) how you treat the Wiener filter. Also, the better estimate
is generated in step one, the better oracle we have in step 2 for Wiener filter. The grouping
technique of BM3D is good enough for achieving the collaborative filtering. Once BM3D
calculates the similar patches with respect to a reference patch, it stacks them together such
that they represent a 3D block. Now, these coefficients are collaboratively hard thresholded,
meaning that coefficient values greater than λ3D will be kept unchanged while coefficients less
than λ3D will be thresholded to 0 (zero). Here, λ3D is the 3D hard thresholding operator. The
value for this operator is empirically found by the authors of BM3D [1].
Chapter 3. Methodology 29

In Discrete Cosine Transform, the first coefficient is basically the average of all the pixel
values within a given block [33]. Therefore, for an accurate inverse transform, the unchanged
DC Coefficient is important. Therefore, BM3D does not apply hard thresholding on DC Co-
efficient. Instead, it applies hard thresholding on all AC-Coefficients. This DC-skipping hard
thresholding is shown in Fig. 3.3. The first coefficient is unchanged (shown below in green
color), then a sudden transition takes place and all other coefficients (AC) are treated in the
same way.
Discrete Cosine Transform does not preserve its average block information in DC Coeffi-
cient only, it also preserves some of its information in the first few AC coefficients [6, 32, 33].
Therefore, thresholding all the AC Coefficients in the same manner means losing some 3D
block information. In order to keep all the image information and just remove the noise, we
should use a zigzag thresholding. Zigzag thresholding is realized by applying little or no thresh-
olding on the DC and first few AC coefficients and then applying more thresholding on rest of
the AC coefficients. Fig. 3.4 which is essentially a gamma (γ) curve will clear the idea.

Figure 3.4: ZigZag Thresholding in DC-Only Profile

Here, like Fig. 3.3, we apply no thresholding on the DC (first) coefficient. Unlike Fig.
3.3 we do not perform a sharp transition. Instead, we linearly or exponentially increase the
thresholding value. The left most curve in Fig. 3.4 shows a completely linear increase of
thresholding value while the other two curves show exponential increases depending on the
value of γ. A gamma curve is as simple as y = xγ , if γ = 1, the y is linear and so on. The
overall idea is to treating all the coefficients of the 3D block in such a way so that the first few
coefficients of the block is less affected by the threshold while the latter coefficients are more
affected. In Chapter 4, we will see how the value of γ affects the PSNR improvement.
We are defining this idea as 3D zigzag thresholding because in DCT, the optimized way to
traverse the coefficients is zigzag ordering as shown in Fig. 3.5. In our case, we follow the
same order, just in 3D instead of 2D.
This idea of 3D zigzag thresholding will emphasize more on preserving image information
and less sharp transition between the coefficients. In Chapter 4, we will see how this idea leads
to an improved denoising performance in the DC-Only profile of BM3D.

3.2.2 Wavelet Profile

As stated earlier, Wavelet profile is a combination of 2D Bi-orthogonal transform and a 1D
Haar or Walsh-Hadamard transform. This profile performs better than the DC-Only profile
Chapter 3. Methodology 30

Figure 3.5: ZigZag Ordering

in terms of PSNR achievement. This profile has two sub-streams- Normal Profile and Fast
Profile.

Normal Profile
The normal profile is realized by using a 2D Bi-orthogonal transform for the noise level σ 6 40
with σ being the standard deviation of AWGN. For σ > 40, this profile uses a 2D-DCT. In both
level of noise, it uses a 1D Haar transform in common. For this profile, we just propose to use
our improved Wiener filter instead of the one being used by BM3D.

Fast Profile
This profiled is named so because of its faster execution as compared to Normal Profile. The
faster execution is achieved by using larger block size as compared to Normal Profile while
finding similar blocks. Another difference between Fast Profile and Normal Profile is that fast
profile does not use Discrete Cosine Transform if σ > 40. The fast profile compromises the
PSNR gain with time. It also uses predictive searching instead of exhaustive searching as in
normal profile. Again, we propose only our improved Wiener filter for this profile, no zigzag
thresholding.

3.2.3 Color Profile

As the name suggests, it is used for color image denoising. We can easily extend our idea of
gray-scale image denoising for color image denoising. Given an 24−bit true color RGB image,
BM3D first converts it to YUV color space. The YUV color space is special color domain that
separates the luminance (Y) and the chrominance (U,V) information [34]. The Y channel
contains the valuable image information such as details, edges, shades, objects and texture
patterns. On the other hand, the chrominance channels mostly contain low frequency image
information such as color. Since Y contains the most valuable information, BM3D performs a
Chapter 3. Methodology 31

3D-grouping on Y channel and use the same grouping for U and V channels. Then it applies
the gray-scale denoising algorithm separately on each channel. Finally, BM3D computes an
inverse color space transform from YUV to RGB.
For this profile, we only propose using our improved Wiener filter. This is because, this
profile is exactly same as the Wavelet profile except that it first transforms and separates the
color channels.
Chapter 4

Experimental Results and Analysis

In this chapter, we will discuss the performance and output we obtained from different experi-
ments for our proposed methods. All the experiments were performed so that it truly reflects the
methods and proposals mentioned in Chapter 3. We start with the performance measurement
metrics we will use to judge our outputs and then discuss the effect of our proposed Wiener
filter and proposed BM3D.

4.1 Data Set

For all the experiments performed in this thesis, we used the eight standard images shown
in Fig. 4.1. The advantage of using these images is that they have some characteristics that
we need for our experiments. For instance, BM3D exhibits slightly different behavior to the
textured and non-textured images. For textured images like Baboon, Barbara and Peppers in
Fig. 4.1, BM3D easily finds a lot of similar blocks which makes collaborative filtering easier
for BM3D. On the other hand, when BM3D works with images that have sudden variation of
gray levels or considerably less similar patterns or textures, it does not perform as good as it
does for textured images. Therefore a combination of both textured and non-textured images is
good for calculating the average results as the average result will indicate an overall usability
of the propose methods.

4.2 Performance Measurement Metrics

The performance of our experiments are measured using both subjective and objective mea-
sures in order to avoid the confusion between these fidelity criteria [35]. Also, an objective
measure gives us completely blind results which is good for understanding the differences be-
tween the outputs. However, at the end, human eyes are the ultimate users of denoised images,
so we considered subjective measures as well.

4.2.1 Objective Fidelity Criteria

The objective fidelity criteria is defined as blind quality assessment since it just takes into ac-
count the mathematical formula and the numeric values of the image to be assessed. Therefore,

32
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 33

Figure 4.1: Test Image Set

it provides a strict measure regardless the type of noise contaminated the image and the type of
image being denoised. There are some standard measurement metrics in this criteria.

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

Our first objective measure Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) is given by Equation 4.1 and
is based on Equation 3.1. In this measure, a higher value indicates a better restored/denoised
image. Here, MAXI indicates the maximum intensity of the image. Note that, since the MSE
is the core of the PSNR quality measure, we do not separately report the responses of MSE
measures in this thesis.

MAXI2
!
PS NR = 10 log10 (4.1)
MS E

Structural Similarity (SSIM)

As discussed in Section 3.1.2, MSE is sometimes misleading so is the PSNR. This is because
PSNR depends on the value of MSE. That is why, we also calculated SSIM for measuring the
quality of our denoised images. The SSIM is given in Equation 3.2. As stated in Section 3.1.2,
a higher value in SSIM indicates better denoising.

4.2.2 Subjective Fidelity Criteria

We also used subjective fidelity criteria, i.e., we relied not only on the mathematical measures,
but also on how human eyes perceiving the denoising performance. For this measure, we will
present an example for each type of denoising we propose for the reader’s convenience. If the
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 34

18
MSE Based Wiener
16 SSIM Based Wiener

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

14

12

10

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Noise Variance

Figure 4.2: Average PSNR Comparison for Denoising

reader wishes to check the visual distinction of our denoising as compared to the existing meth-
ods, we refer the reader to Appendix A and Appendix B, in which we provide all experimental
results and output images from our experiments.

4.3 Improved Wiener Filter for Image Denoising

To check the response of our proposed Wiener filter, we start with the noise free images. We
add noise using Matlab function imnoise to those images. The imnoise function takes the
noise variance as input. This function rescales the noise variance within a scale from 0.0 to 1.0.
We used noise variance from 0.0 to 0.25 to generate the results of Section 4.3 and Section 4.4.
In this case. our obtained result is promising. For all the objective performance measure-
ment metrics, we obtained better results. Fig. 4.2 and Fig. 4.3 respectively show the average
PSNR and SSIM comparison of our proposed SSIM optimized Wiener filter with the MSE
optimized Wiener filter. Clearly, the proposed method achieves consistent improvement over
MSE optimized basic Wiener filter. All the obtained average results are given in Table 4.1
for reader’s convenience. Note that, Wiener filter also takes a degradation function along with
the noise signal. We used a Gaussian blurred function as standard degradation function in this
experiment.

4.4 Improved Wiener Filter for Image Restoration

To observe the Wiener response for restoration, we take into consideration the images that are
noisy as well as Gaussian blurred (degraded). The Gaussian blur is achieved by using Equation
2.11. We present the average PSNR and SSIM comparison for them in Fig. 4.4 and in Fig.
4.5, respectively. The data obtained from experiments to generate Fig. 4.4 and Fig. 4.5 are
presented in Table 4.2.
It is clear from table 4.2 that our proposed Wiener filter is also capable of achieving better
image restoration, not only image denoising. Now we can use this improved filter inside BM3D
to observe its effect.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 35

0.35
MSE Based Wiener
SSIM Based Wiener
0.3

Structural Similarity (SSIM) 0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Noise Variance

Figure 4.3: Average SSIM Comparison for Denoising

20

18 SSIM Based Wiener

MSE Based Wiener
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

16

14

12

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Blur Level

Figure 4.4: Average PSNR Comparison for Restoration

0.35

MSE Based Wiener

0.3
SSIM Based Wiener
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.25

0.2

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Blur Level

Figure 4.5: Average SSIM Comparison for Restoration

Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 36

MSE Based Wiener Filter Proposed Wiener Filter Gain

Noise Variance PSNR SSIM PSNR SSIM PSNR SSIM
0.01 16.102 0.21644 17.639 0.27011 1.536 0.05367
0.02 13.552 0.14361 15.141 0.18221 1.589 0.03859
0.03 12.504 0.11680 13.712 0.14142 1.208 0.02462
0.04 11.799 0.10068 12.750 0.11803 0.951 0.01735
0.05 11.293 0.08943 12.047 0.10228 0.754 0.01284
0.06 10.886 0.08110 11.508 0.09057 0.622 0.00946
0.07 10.558 0.07429 11.085 0.08228 0.527 0.00799
0.08 10.288 0.06946 10.720 0.07504 0.432 0.00558
0.09 10.048 0.06514 10.430 0.06959 0.381 0.00445
0.10 9.840 0.06136 10.180 0.06524 0.340 0.00388
0.11 9.661 0.05828 9.955 0.06163 0.293 0.00335
0.12 9.508 0.05542 9.766 0.05802 0.257 0.00260
0.13 9.365 0.05304 9.599 0.05560 0.234 0.00256
0.14 9.240 0.05062 9.445 0.05294 0.204 0.00232
0.15 9.131 0.04895 9.304 0.05047 0.172 0.00151
0.16 9.028 0.04730 9.188 0.04878 0.160 0.00148
0.17 8.929 0.04581 9.078 0.04683 0.148 0.00102
0.18 8.849 0.04407 8.976 0.04543 0.126 0.00135
0.19 8.749 0.04266 8.887 0.04398 0.137 0.00131
0.20 8.682 0.04160 8.792 0.04258 0.110 0.00097
0.21 8.598 0.04013 8.715 0.04171 0.116 0.00158
0.22 8.544 0.03944 8.640 0.04027 0.096 0.00082
0.23 8.486 0.03871 8.571 0.03917 0.084 0.00046
0.24 8.428 0.03777 8.505 0.03841 0.076 0.00063
0.25 8.371 0.03694 8.447 0.03744 0.075 0.00049
Average 10.018 0.06796 10.443 0.07600 0.425 0.00804

Table 4.1: Average PSNR-SSIM Comparison of Wiener Filter for Denoising

4.5 Improved BM3D for DC-Only Profile

As discussed in Section 3.2.1, we know that the DC-Only profile performs poorer than the
Wavelet profile because of the energy compaction technique of the Discrete Cosine Transform.
In Chapter 3, we proposed two different solutions to solve the problem of this profile of BM3D.
In this section, we will see the effects of those solutions.

4.5.1 Parameterized Setup for DC-Only Profile

To solve the problem of DC-Only profile, we considered the parameterized setup given in 4.3.
The notations used are directly taken (except S htstep ) from the original article [1]. For reader’s
convenience, we noted their meanings as well. The other parameters that are not present in table
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 37

MSE Based Wiener Filter SSIM Based Wiener Filter

Blur Level PSNR SSIM PSNR SSIM
1 9.984 0.06348 10.425 0.07130
2 10.661 0.06104 10.665 0.06105
3 12.397 0.07690 12.417 0.07789
4 13.963 0.09472 14.002 0.09747
5 15.207 0.11335 15.269 0.11873
6 16.137 0.13162 16.232 0.14104
7 16.792 0.14841 16.941 0.16387
8 17.223 0.16225 17.455 0.18698
9 17.490 0.17274 17.817 0.20979
10 17.672 0.18095 18.076 0.23208
11 17.822 0.18907 18.255 0.25319
12 17.929 0.19660 18.372 0.27304
13 18.021 0.20417 18.443 0.29173
14 18.090 0.21064 18.484 0.30833
15 18.143 0.21640 18.495 0.32377
Average 15.835 0.148 16.090 0.187

Table 4.2: Average PSNR-SSIM Comparison of Wiener Filter for Restoration

4.3 are used with their default values as in [1]. In table 4.3, the values of S htstep indicate that
we used No Overlapping, 50% Overlapping (Moderate Overlapping) and 75% Overlapping
(Maximum Overlapping) respectively for our experiments.
Also, we didn’t use the Matlab function imnoise to generate the noise for these experi-
ments. Since we have to compare our results with the original BM3D, we also tried to follow
the convention that BM3D followed. Therefore, we used the standard deviation σ = 0 to
σ = 100 in Equation 2.2 to generate the noise. For simplicity, we discretized σ in ten different
levels, starting from σ = 10 to σ = 100.

Notations Meaning Value

τht
2D 2D Transform 2D-DCT
τ1D 1D Transform 1D-DCT
N1ht Patch Size 8
ht
N step Step Size for Moving Reference Patch 3
NSht Search Window Size 40
S htstep Step Size for Moving Similar Patches 0,4,6

Table 4.3: Parameterized Setup for BM3D DC-Only Profile

Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 38

4.5.2 With Improved Wiener Filter Only

First, we will present the DC-Only profile modified by our proposed Wiener filter only. That
is, we just replace the Wiener filter of BM3D with our proposed Wiener filter. We compare our
results with the DC-Only profile of BM3D. We used the same parameterized setup for both
methods.

Non-Overlapping Similar Patches

The term Non-Overlapping Similar Patches means when we find the similar patches with re-
spect to the reference patch, we do not overlap the similar patches. In other words, when we
consider one patch as similar to reference patch, we make sure that no pixel value of this patch
has even been considered for computation.
The use of our proposed Wiener filter was satisfactory in this case. The recorded responses
show that we keep improving the BM3D performances as the noise level (σ) goes higher. Table
4.4 shows the detailed results obtained for this experiment.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 24.62 24.62 0.999810 0.999964
20 23.38 24.62 0.999700 0.999947
30 22.67 24.59 0.999610 0.999913
40 22.16 24.52 0.999533 0.999878
50 21.77 24.37 0.999464 0.999844
60 21.46 24.10 0.999403 0.999808
70 21.21 23.75 0.999350 0.999777
80 20.97 23.31 0.999296 0.999743
90 20.80 22.81 0.999253 0.999713
100 20.61 22.35 0.999206 0.999681

Table 4.4: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using Improved
Wiener Filter

It is clear from the table 4.4 that except for σ = 10 (where we have same PSNR as in
BM3D), our proposed method improved the performance of BM3D considerably. For the easy
visualization of the improvement, we have shown the PSNR and SSIM comparison of our
proposed method with BM3D in Fig. 4.6 and Fig. 4.7, respectively.
Fig. 4.8 shows a subjective measurement for the test image Lena. Here, the noise is σ = 50.
It is seen that BM3D output is more blurry whereas the proposed method is much better detailed
preserving.

Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Patches

In this case, when we move the patch in a sliding window manner in order to find the similar
patch with respect to the reference patch, we take half of the patch into consideration that has
already been taken as similar patch. The important observation in this case is that our proposed
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 39

30
BM3D DC−Only Profile

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

Proposed DC−Only Profile
25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.6: Average PSNR Comparison with No Overlapping for DC-Only Profile

1.005
BM3D DC−Only Profile
Proposed DC−Only Profile
1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.7: Average SSIM Comparison with No Overlapping for DC-Only Profile

Figure 4.8: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 40

30
BM3D DC−Only Profile
Proposed DC−Only Profile

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.9: Average PSNR Comparison with 50% OVerlapping for DC-Only Profile

method works better only for higher noise levels. The detailed experimental results are shown
in table 4.5. The comparison curves for this case are shown in Fig. 4.9 and Fig. 4.10. We also
present a subjective measure in Fig. 4.11.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 25.71 24.47 0.999879 0.999810
20 24.65 24.45 0.999821 0.999808
30 24.06 24.42 0.999776 0.999806
40 23.65 24.34 0.999737 0.999800
50 23.33 24.22 0.999701 0.999791
60 23.05 24.03 0.999669 0.999778
70 22.83 23.80 0.999639 0.999763
80 22.63 23.51 0.999612 0.999743
90 22.46 23.20 0.999587 0.999719
100 22.31 22.89 0.999563 0.999694

Table 4.5: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter

Apparently, from the observation of Fig. 4.8 and Fig. 4.11, we can say that BM3D per-
formance improves as we take overlapping similar blocks. However, at the same time, our
proposed method gives poorer improvement over BM3D. We can see from tables 4.5 and
4.4 that our proposed method gives little or no improvement when overlapping is in effect.
Otherwise, our proposed method outperforms BM3D.

Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Patches

In this case, we overlap the similar patch finding by 75% i.e., only two pixels are left when we
take the second patch to find the similarity with respect to the reference patch. Interestingly, we
could not outperform BM3D in this case. This experiment indicates that the DC-Only profile
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 41

1.005
BM3D DC−Only Profile
Proposed DC−Only Profile
1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.10: Average SSIM Comparison with 50% OVerlapping for DC-Only Profile

Figure 4.11: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 42

30
Proposed DC−Only Profile
BM3D DC−Only Profile

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.12: Average PSNR Comparison with 75% Overlapping for DC-Only Profile

of BM3D works best when there are maximum overlapping. Table 4.6 shows the data obtained
for this experiment.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 27.48 25.14 0.999939 0.999851
20 26.43 25.11 0.999910 0.999849
30 25.81 25.06 0.999884 0.999845
40 25.36 24.96 0.999860 0.999837
50 24.98 24.82 0.999836 0.999826
60 24.65 24.63 0.999813 0.999812
70 24.38 24.42 0.999792 0.999795
80 24.09 24.09 0.999769 0.999772
90 23.68 23.53 0.999742 0.999741
100 23.07 22.56 0.999708 0.999694

Table 4.6: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter

Fig. 4.12, Fig. 4.13 and Fig. 4.14 show the comparison curves and the subjective measures
for this experiment.
To conclude this subsection, we will note that although increasing the overlapping amount
improves the performance of BM3D, for real time execution, we can not take maximum over-
lapping for this profile. In terms of time, no overlapping is the best. In this case, our proposed
method outperforms BM3D. For the average case, we can take 50% overlapping. Still, our
proposed method outperforms BM3D.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 43

1.005
Proposed DC−Only Profile
BM3D DC−Only Profile
1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.13: Average SSIM Comparison with 75% Overlapping for DC-Only Profile

Figure 4.14: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 44

4.5.3 With 3D Zigzag Thresholding Only

As discussed in Section 3.2.1, we are also interested about applying a 3D zigzag thresholding
instead of applying the same threshold for all AC coefficients. We have already discussed that
when applying 3D zigzag thresholding, we are basically dealing with a gamma curve (y = xγ ),
where the value of γ will affect the output. In this subsection, we will present results only for
γ = 1. Later, in Section 4.5.5, we will discuss the effect of changing γ.

Non-Overlapping Similar Patches

For this experiment, our obtained results are summarized in table 4.7. It is apparent from the
results that the idea of using 3D zigzag thresholding does not improve the performance. This
is because, when we take less overlapping blocks, we are eventually having less number of
estimates for each pixel. In addition, using a linear zigzag thresholding means applying lower
threshold value to the DC and first few AC coefficients that inherently hold the noise along
with the image information. However, we will notice later that using more overlapping while
finding similar blocks will resolve this issue. The comparison curves for this case are given in
Fig. 4.15 and Fig. 4.16, respectively. For the subjective measure, we present Fig. 4.17.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR 3D-Zigzag PSNR BM3D SSIM 3D-ZigZag SSIM
10 24.63 24.19 0.999811 0.999770
20 23.38 23.04 0.999700 0.999654
30 22.69 22.38 0.999610 0.999563
40 22.16 21.91 0.999532 0.999486
50 21.77 21.56 0.999463 0.999419
60 21.47 21.28 0.999404 0.999362
70 21.20 21.04 0.999347 0.999307
80 20.99 20.85 0.999299 0.999263
90 20.81 20.69 0.999255 0.999223
100 20.63 20.53 0.999210 0.999181

Table 4.7: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D Zigzag
Thresholding (γ = 1)

Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Blocks

The results obtained for this section are summarized in table 4.8. Like other subsections of this
chapter, comparison curves and subjective measures are given in Fig. 4.18, Fig. 4.19 and Fig.
4.20. We can observe that in this case our proposed method is achieving better performance as
compared to BM3D.

Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Blocks

The results of this section (presented in table 4.9) will lead to an important decision- should
we always use the 3D zigzag thresholding regardless of the noise level? The answer is NO.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 45

25
Proposed DC−Only Profile ofBM3D
DC−Only Profile of BM3D

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Figure 4.15: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

1.005
Proposed DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
1
Structural Similarity

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.16: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Figure 4.17: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 46

30
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.18: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

1.005
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method
1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.19: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Figure 4.20: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 47

Noise Level BM3D PSNR 3D-Zigzag PSNR BM3D SSIM 3D-ZigZag SSIM
10 25.70 26.14 0.999879 0.999891
20 24.65 25.08 0.999821 0.999839
30 24.06 24.46 0.999775 0.999796
40 23.64 24.01 0.999735 0.999760
50 23.31 23.68 0.999700 0.999727
60 23.05 23.40 0.999669 0.999697
70 22.83 23.09 0.999639 0.999669
80 22.63 22.94 0.999611 0.999643
90 22.48 22.76 0.999589 0.999622
100 22.30 22.53 0.999562 0.999594

Table 4.8: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

This is because, with the higher level of noise, the DC coefficient and first few AC coefficients
will keep preserving more noise information along with the original image information. So,
using lower threshold values for them means keeping the noises as well. Therefore, when the
noise level is higher, we should not use the 3D zigzag thresholding. Instead, we should use our
proposed improved Wiener filter only to achieve better performance. The experimental results
shown in Fig. 4.21 and Fig. 4.22 show that after σ = 50, we should stop using 3D zigzag
thresholding and use the improved Wiener filter only. The subjective measure for this portion
of experiment is given in Fig. 4.23.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR 3D-Zigzag PSNR BM3D SSIM 3D-ZigZag SSIM
10 28.78 30.19 0.999954 0.999972
20 27.68 28.93 0.999928 0.999944
30 27.03 27.99 0.999905 0.999930
40 26.53 27.07 0.999883 0.999904
50 26.04 26.06 0.999858 0.999871
60 25.69 24.99 0.999837 0.999834
70 25.32 23.79 0.999813 0.999785
80 24.93 22.55 0.999788 0.999726
90 24.46 21.32 0.999760 0.999654
100 23.75 20.06 0.999723 0.999562

Table 4.9: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

4.5.4 With Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding

Once we observed the effect of our proposed improved Wiener filter and 3D zigzag thresh-
olding separately in BM3D, we are now ready to put them together. Note that, the proposed
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 48

35
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method
30

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.21: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

1.005
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method
DC−Only Profile of BM3D

1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.22: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using 3D
Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Figure 4.23: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 49

Wiener filter should affect the performance of second step of BM3D only while the 3D zigzag
thresholding should affect the first step. Also, we have already observed that due to its noise
preserving nature, the proposed 3D zigzag thresholding should not be used for higher noise lev-
els. If used, it will eventually deteriorate the performance of second step too since the output
of first step is used as an oracle to the Wiener filter in second step.

Non-Overlapping Similar Patches

The results obtained for this section are given in table 4.10. Clearly we have improved the
performance of DC-Only profile of BM3D. The performance comparison curves present in
Fig. 4.24 and Fig. 4.25 visually show the improvement achieved in our proposed case. The
subjective measure given in Fig. 4.26 shows that the visual improvement is notable.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 24.33 23.22 0.999803 0.999694
20 23.14 23.21 0.999691 0.999693
30 22.47 23.22 0.999602 0.999693
40 22.00 23.26 0.999528 0.999696
50 21.64 23.33 0.999461 0.999701
60 21.35 23.36 0.999401 0.999702
70 21.11 23.35 0.999351 0.999703
80 20.91 23.29 0.999302 0.999700
90 20.73 23.04 0.999258 0.999687
100 20.58 22.52 0.999218 0.999661

Table 4.10: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with No Overlapping using Improved
Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Moderate (50%) Overlapping Similar Blocks

The results obtained are summarized in table 4.11. The comparison curves are given in Fig.
4.27 and Fig. 4.28. For visual inspection of how we improved BM3D, we present the subjective
measure in Fig. 4.29.

Maximum (75%) Overlapping Similar Blocks

The final experiments we made for DC-Only profile of BM3D is by making 75% overlapping
while searching similar patches. The results are given in table 4.12. Since we didn’t stop using
the 3D zigzag thresholding after σ = 50, a sudden performance drop after σ = 50 is noticeable.
We present the performance comparison curves for PSNR and SSIM quality measures in
Fig. 4.30 and Fig. 4.31 respectively. The visual inspection on the proposed method can be
made from Fig. 4.32.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 50

25

20
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

15

DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method

DC−Only Profile of BM3D
10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.24: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

1.005
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method

1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.25: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 51

Figure 4.26: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with Non Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.

30
DC−Only Profile of Proposed MEthod
DC−Only Profile of BM3D

25

20
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.27: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 52

1.005
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method
DC−Only Profile of BM3D

1
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.995

0.99

0.985

0.98
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.28: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Figure 4.29: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 53

30
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method
DC−Only Profile of BM3D

25
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.30: Average PSNR Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

1.002
DC−Only Profile of BM3D
DC−Only Profile of Proposed Method

0.998
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.996

0.994

0.992

0.99
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.31: Average SSIM Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using
Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 54

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 25.70 25.17 0.999879 0.999846
20 24.64 25.15 0.999820 0.999844
30 24.05 25.11 0.999774 0.999840
40 23.64 25.01 0.999735 0.999834
50 23.31 24.75 0.999700 0.999822
60 23.07 24.32 0.999671 0.999803
70 22.83 23.58 0.999640 0.999771
80 22.87 22.81 0.999622 0.999736
90 22.45 21.44 0.999596 0.999664
100 22.30 20.45 0.999561 0.999588

Table 4.11: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 50% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wienre Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 27.49 27.54 0.999940 0.999939
20 26.43 27.36 0.999909 0.999932
30 25.82 26.91 0.999966 0.999937
40 25.37 26.07 0.999860 0.999893
50 24.97 24.84 0.999836 0.999853
60 24.67 23.39 0.999814 0.999797
70 24.36 21.81 0.999791 0.999717
80 24.43 20.35 0.999783 0.999624
90 23.67 18.70 0.999741 0.999484
100 23.07 17.27 0.999707 0.999326

Table 4.12: Performance Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping using Im-
proved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding (γ = 1)

4.5.5 Effect of Gamma (γ) in 3D Zigzag Thresholding

The 3D zigzag thresholding follows Equation 4.2. We have seen that the 3D zigzag threshold-
ing cannot be used regardless of the type of images or noise level if the zigzag thresholding is
linear, meaning that it increases by the same amount each time it iterates.

y = xγ (4.2)
What if our γ curve is quadratic or exponential? We executed some easy experiments to
see the effect of γ. We changed the value γ = 1 to γ = 1.5 i.e., made it exponential. Then we
compared our result with the output of γ = 1. In this case, we got better denoising for Non
Overlapping Blocks, almost same denoising for 50% Overlapping Blocks and worst denoising
for 75% Overlapping Blocks as compared to γ = 1.
γ = 0.5 should produce different results and so do the other values of γ. We leave this
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 55

Figure 4.32: Subjective Comparison of DC-Only Profile with 75% Overlapping. Left: Noisy
Image, Middle: BM3D Output, Right: Proposed Method’s Output.

direction of study as a future work. We note that a suitable value of γ can lead to better
denoising of the first step of the DC-Only profile of BM3D.

4.5.6 Performance Bound for 3D Zigzag Thresholding

Our proposed improvement over Wiener filter leads to improvement regardless of the type of
the images or noise level as long as we don’t go for the maximum overlapping of a patch while
searching for similar patches. In practice, of course, we never go for the maximum overlapping.
The idea of BM3D is to look for the similar patches within a given window and to keep only
16 most similar patches for building the 3D-block- indicated by the variable N2ht in [1]. BM3D
authors mentioned in [1] that it is not possible to improve the denoising performance much
using more than 16 similar patches. For a general image, it is possible to find more than
16 similar patches even without overlapping the patches of the search window. For instance,
consider a search window consist of 40 × 40 pixel and we are working with patches with 8 × 8.
Hence, we have 25 patches of 8 × 8 dimension. Since the most similar patch with respect to
the reference is the reference patch itself, we need to find more 15 similar patches out of 24
patches. For a image with wide smooth region or repetitive pattern, it is not impossible to find
so. We need to go for 50% overlapping only if we don’t find 15 similar patches out 24 patches.
In this thesis, all DC-Only profile experiments were performed based on all similar patches,
not based on only 16 patches. Our results in every case show that the more we take similar
patches, the more denoising is achievable. This is one finding of this thesis. As long as we
follow the parameters set for original BM3D, we don’t need overlapping blocks and we can
say that our proposed improvement of Wiener filter is capable of achieving more denoising for
DC-Only profile of BM3D regardless of the type of images or noise level.
However, when we use our proposed 3D zigzag thresholding, we need to be careful! As
discussed earlier, we cannot use this idea for higher level of noise. If we use for higher noise,
it will deteriorate the image instead of improving it. This is because the idea of 3D zigzag
thresholding is to apply more thresholding for less important image coefficients and vice versa.
Also, this idea tries to avoid the sudden change of threshold level in case of BM3D. To do
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 56

so, it skips the DC coefficient and first few AC coefficients. Unfortunately, it also skips a
good amount of noise along with the DC and first few AC coefficients. When the noise level
increases, DC and first few AC coefficients preserve more noise information.
Therefore, from our experiments, we suggest to use 3D zigzag thresholding (linear) upto
the noise level σ = 50 for DC-Only profile.

4.6 Improved BM3D for Wavelet Profile

This profile may be defined as Mainstream BM3D since the authors of BM3D [1] recom-
mended to use Wavelet transform in their proposed denoising method. Although we improved
the performance of DC-Only profile, unless we achieve improvement in the main stream
BM3D, we cannot claim that we improved the performance of BM3D. This is because, the
main stream BM3D has PSNR gain way better than DC-Only profile. Hence, the major con-
cern of this thesis is to improve the performance of Wavelet profile of BM3D.
In this section, we will explore that how the idea of our proposed Wiener filter achieves
better denoising performance of BM3D. Unlike DC-Only profile, since there is no DC and
AC coefficients, we have only proposed improvement in this case- to use our improved Wiener
filter in the second step of BM3D.

4.6.1 Parameterized Setup for Wavelet Profile

For the wavelet profile, we used exactly same parameterized setup as in BM3D [1]. We present
the basic parameterized setup from the original article [1] in table 4.13 for reader’s conve-
nience. We use exactly the same parameters to ensure the same environment for the experi-
ment. The wavelet profile uses two sub-profiles called Normal Profile and Fast Profile. The
only difference between them is that we compromise the denoising performance to reduce
computational complexity in fast profile. Another difference between these two profiles is the
fast profile uses predictive searching in order to decrease its searching time while the normal
profile uses only exhaustive searching.

4.6.2 Normal Profile

In normal profile, we executed the same experiments as in DC-Only profiles. Since the wavelet
profile itself exploits higher performance as compared to DC-Only profile, even a small in-
crease in PSNR/SSIM indicates a reasonable improvement. The experimental results for this
profile are given in table 4.14.
The performance comparison curves show that our proposed method is capable of achieving
a maximum of 1dB PSNR for higher noise levels, while for the lower noise level the achieved
PSNR is less. Fig. 4.33 and Fig. 4.34 respective show the PSNR and SSIM comparison of
normal profile of BM3D with our proposed method. Fig. 4.35 presents a subjective measure
for Lena image with σ = 50.
It is clearly visible from Fig. 4.33 and Fig. 4.34 that there is a sharp PSNR drop at σ = 40.
This is because BM3D treats all noise levels below σ = 40 different than the noise levels above
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 57

35
Normal Profile of BM3D
Normal Profile of Proposed Method

30

25
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.33: Average PSNR Comparison of Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method

1
Normal Profile of BM3D
Normal Profile of Proposed Method
0.9

0.8

0.7
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.34: Average SSIM Comparison of Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 58

Normal Profile
Fast Profile
Notations Meaning σ 6 40 σ > 40
τht
2D 2D Transform Used 2D-Bior1.5 2D-Bior1.5 2D-DCT
N1ht Patch Size 8 8 12
N2ht Maximum Number of Similar Patches Retained 16 16 16
ht
N step Step of Reference Patch 6 3 4
NSht Size of Search Window 25 39 39
ht
Parameters for Step 1 (ht) NFS Exhaustive Search Window Size 6 1 1
ht
NPR Predictive Search Window Size 3 - -
βht Parameters for Kaiser Window 2.0 2.0 2.0
λ2D Pre-processing Threshold 0 0 2.0
λ3D Hard Threshold 2.7 2.7 2.8
τht
match Similarity Threshold for Patches 2500 2500 5000
τwie
2D 2D Transform Used 2D-DCT 2D-DCT 2D-DCT
N1wie Patch Size 8 8 11
N2wie Maximum Number of Similar Patches Retained 16 32 32
wie
N step Step of Reference Patch 5 3 6
Parameters for Step 2 (wie) NSwie Size of Search Window 25 39 39
wie
NFS Exhaustive Search Window Size 5 1 1
wie
NPR Predictive Search Window Size 2 - -
τwie
match Similarity Threshold for Patches 400 400 3500
βwie Parameters for Kaiser Window 2.0 2.0 2.0
Common 1D-Haar 1D-Haar 1D-Haar

Table 4.13: Parameterized Setup for Wavelet Profile of BM3D

σ = 40. Since we are following the same algorithm of BM3D, except that we are using our
proposed Wiener filter, we are having the same sharp PSNR drop at σ = 40.

4.6.3 Fast Profile

The fast profile is similar to normal profile, except that this profile is faster and the searching
is predictive and the performance is slightly lower than normal profile. Still, this profile is
comparable with normal profile unlike DC-Only profile where we have huge PSNR drop as
compared to normal profile. The experimental results obtained for fast profile is presented in
table 4.15.

Figure 4.35: Subjective Measure for Normal Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 59

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 34.17 34.16 0.903426 0.902944
20 31.04 31.10 0.843516 0.843756
30 29.08 29.28 0.788699 0.795423
40 27.42 27.87 0.730636 0.750625
50 26.79 27.05 0.701603 0.719319
60 25.85 26.28 0.656344 0.689510
70 25.06 25.65 0.615045 0.663826
80 24.37 25.11 0.575113 0.640845
90 23.70 24.59 0.533586 0.617141
100 23.15 24.18 0.500376 0.599786

Table 4.14: Performance Comparison of Normal Profile with Proposed Method

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 34.18 34.17 0.903621 0.903149
20 31.04 31.09 0.843739 0.843953
30 29.07 29.27 0.788761 0.795254
40 27.45 27.91 0.731555 0.752113
50 26.81 27.06 0.702944 0.720458
60 25.89 26.30 0.657783 0.690009
70 25.07 25.63 0.614373 0.662845
80 24.38 25.11 0.575239 0.641276
90 23.76 24.64 0.538769 0.620653
100 23.14 24.17 0.499743 0.599324

Table 4.15: Performance Comparison of Fast Profile with Proposed Method

We plot the table 4.15 in Fig. 4.36 and Fig. 4.36. One can examine that these two figures
are almost similar to Fig. 4.33 and Fig. 4.34. If we compare these with any of DC-Only profile,
we realize why the usage of DC-Only profile is discouraged. However, since we improve the
DC-Only profile of BM3D, they are now comparable to any of the wavelet profiles. Fig. 4.38
shows a subjective measure for the image Lena with σ = 50.

4.7 Extension of Wavelet Profile for Color Image Denoising

In color image denoising experiments of this section, we used four images as shown in Fig.
4.39. These four images are all 24 − bit true color 512 × 512 images.
One approach to employ Color BM3D (CBM3D) to 24 − bit true color images is to ap-
ply BM3D separately on each of its channels. However, correct grouping is one of the key
properties of BM3D and it largely depends on the noise level. Again, grouping is a time con-
suming operation, doing it thrice makes the algorithm considerably slower. Moreover, three
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 60

35
Fast Profile of BM3D
Fast Profile of Proposed Method

30
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.36: Average PSNR Comparison of Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method

1
Fast Profile of BM3D
Fast Profile of Proposed Method
0.9

0.8

0.7
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.37: Average SSIM Comparison of Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 61

Figure 4.38: Subjective Measure for Fast Profile of BM3D with Proposed Method

Figure 4.39: 24 − bit True Color Images used for Color Image Denoising Experiments
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 62

channels should generate three different grouping with sparsity of image information which
lead to erroneous hard thresholding.
BM3D extension to color image denoising is realized by converting a noisy RGB image
with AWGN on each of its channel to a luminance and chrominance transformed space. In
the transformed space, the luminance signal contains much of the image information while the
chrominance signals contain low frequency information. Therefore, CMB3D performs group-
ing on luminance channel only and use exactly the same grouping for chrominance channels.
The idea behind this form of grouping is the concept that if the luminance of two blocks are
mutually similar, then the chrominance of these blocks are also mutually similar [1].
We used the same concept for color image denoising as in CBM3D except that in second
step, we used our improved Wiener filter instead of the existing Wiener filter. The experiments
are performed for both normal and fast profiles. The experimental results for normal color
profile are presented in table 4.16. The performance comparison charts in Fig. 4.40 and Fig.
4.41 show that our proposed method achieve much better denoising performance than original
BM3D. For visual inspection of denoised color images of normal profile, we refer the reader
to Fig. 4.42.

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 34.11 34.11 0.937238 0.937338
20 31.29 31.35 0.896293 0.897323
30 29.56 29.70 0.860060 0.863810
40 27.92 28.14 0.818205 0.824023
50 27.61 27.80 0.797585 0.806443
60 26.81 27.06 0.768438 0.781308
70 26.07 26.43 0.736980 0.757270
80 25.47 25.93 0.709575 0.737285
90 24.89 25.42 0.681548 0.717313
100 24.23 24.85 0.648800 0.692223

Table 4.16: Performance Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) with Proposed Method

For the fast color profile, the experimental results are shown in table 4.17. The data are
plotted in Fig. 4.43 and Fig. 4.44 respectively for PSNR and SSIM measurement. The output
is shown in Fig. 4.45 for σ = 50 for a visual inspection of the reader. Since the fast profile
compromises the performance in order to reduce time, the output is poorer than normal profile.
Therefore, for the image presented for σ = 50 in Fig. 4.45, the difference may not be that
much visible. However, for a higher level of noise, the difference is clearly visible to human
eyes. We present all the outputs of our experiments in Appendix B.

4.8 Summary of Results

In this chapter, we presented a number of experimental results that we extensively performed
on BM3D and our proposed method. For Wavelet and Color profiles of BM3D (a.k.a. main
stream BM3D), we achieved better PSNR and SSIM for our method. The DC-Only profile
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 63

35
Color Profile (Normal) of Proposed Method
Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

30

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.40: Average PSNR Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed
Method

1
Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D
0.9 Color Profile (Normal) of Proposed Method
0.8
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.41: Average SSIM Comparison of Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed
Method

Figure 4.42: Subjective Measure for Color Profile (Normal) of BM3D with Proposed Method
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 64

35
Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D
30 Color Profile (Fast) of Proposed Method
Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR)

25

20

15

10

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.43: Average PSNR Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed
Method

1
Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D
0.9 Color Profile (Fast) of Proposed Method

0.8

0.7
Structural Similarity (SSIM)

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Noise Level

Figure 4.44: Average SSIM Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed
Method
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 65

Noise Level BM3D PSNR Proposed PSNR BM3D SSIM Proposed SSIM
10 33.95 33.96 0.936408 0.936363
20 31.00 31.09 0.892963 0.894203
30 29.05 29.28 0.851715 0.856908
40 27.32 27.59 0.803835 0.810890
50 27.38 27.54 0.795188 0.802460
60 26.50 26.77 0.764728 0.775403
70 25.78 26.12 0.737650 0.751798
80 25.13 25.57 0.709728 0.730303
90 24.42 24.96 0.680508 0.706988
100 23.69 24.22 0.648338 0.675823

Table 4.17: Performance Comparison of Color Profile (Fast) with Proposed Method

Figure 4.45: Subjective Measure for Color Profile (Fast) of BM3D with Proposed Method

is usually poorer performance giver, we also showed that for most of the cases, our proposed
method works better than DC-Only profile of BM3D. In this section, we summarize the results
presented in the chapter for reader’s convenience. The summary is given in table 4.18.
Proposed Method
No Overlapping Better
Using Improved Wiener Filter Only Moderate Overlapping Better
Maximum Overlapping Close and Comparable to BM3D
No Overlapping Better
DC-Only Profile Using 3D Zigzag Thresholding Only Moderate Overlapping Better
Maximum Overlapping Better up to σ = 50
No Overlapping Better
Using Improved Wiener Filter and 3D Zigzag Thresholding Moderate Overlapping Better up to σ = 70
Maximum Overlapping Better up to σ = 50
Normal Profile Better
Wavelet Profile
Fast Profile Better
Normal Profile Better
Color Profile
Fast Profile Better

Table 4.18: Summary of Experimental Results

Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 66

Figure 4.46: Lena Image for Intensity Profile Calculation. Red Line shows the Scan Line taken
as input to Intensity Profile

4.9 Intensity Profile

Intensity profile is one measure for inspecting how sharp the edges are after denoising [36]. In
intensity profile, we choose one scan line on the true image, noisy image and denoised image
and plot them together to see how close the denoised profile is to the original profile. Also, it
shows us how sharp the edges are after achieving denoising. For instance, let us consider the
Lena image given in Fig. 4.46. Here, we consider the 140th row (indicated by red line) for our
intensity profile calculation. If we plot this scan line, we end up with the Fig. 4.47.
Now, to check how close our proposed method (as well as BM3D) is to the true noise
free image, we perform the same task. That is, we consider the 140th row from our denoised
image and BM3D’s denoised image and plot them together. The denoised images are taken for

250

200

150

100

50

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Figure 4.47: Intensity Profile for the Scan Line shown in Fig. 4.46
Chapter 4. Experimental Results and Analysis 67

250

200

150

100

50 True Signal
Denoised by Proposed Method
Denoised by BM3D

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Figure 4.48: Intensity Profiles for BM3D and Proposed Method with respect to the True Image

σ = 50. This is shown in Fig. 4.48.

It is visible from this intensity profile that our proposed method is more closer to the true
signal as compared to its BM3D counterpart. Having a careful look at all the transitions of Fig.
4.48, we notice that the red line is more close to the blue line as compared to the green line. It
proves that the proposed method is capable of achieving more sharpness than that of BM3D.

To conclude this chapter, we can say that we have been able to improve the performance of
BM3D in the sense that our proposed method achieves clearly better result than the BM3D for
its main stream profiles. Also, for the DC-Only profile, since BM3D does not accept more than
16 similar patches to be kept in the 3D group, it is possible to achieve 16 similar patches using
no overlapping of the similar patches except in the case of extremely non-textured images.
Chapter 5

Conclusion and Future Work

We conclude this thesis by discussing the possible extension of our works, its applications and
the summary of our proposed method.

5.1 Conclusion
In this thesis, we rigorously reviewed the noise for digital images, its variants and existing
methods of image denoising. We presented a number of ideas that have essentially improved
the performance of the current state of the art of image denoising- BM3D. Our ideas work for
both monochrome (gray-scale) and color images.
We discussed with appropriate example how the MSE can be misleading and how this
affects the performance of Wiener filter. We then proposed an improved Wiener filter which is
optimized for SSIM. Our performance analysis proved that our proposed Wiener filter works
better than the existing MSE optimized Wiener filter.
We also proposed several improvements for different profiles of BM3D. We considered
using our improved Wiener filter as a core component of BM3D in its second step. This SSIM
optimized Wiener filter improved the PSNR gain of BM3D up to a more than 1dB. For the
state of the art like BM3D, improving 1dB PSNR is considered huge.
We particularly contributed in the DC-Only profile of BM3D. We proposed a 3D zigzag
thresholding to get rid of the problem of data loss from the DC and the first few AC coefficients
of the 3D blocks. Our performance analysis for DC-only profile showed that 3D zigzag thresh-
olding idea has been able to make the output of DC-only profile less blurry, thereby improving
the denoising performance of this profile.
Last but not the least, we developed a Matlab software for BM3D image denoising. This
should help a lot of users around the world to carry on research on image denoising, particularly
on BM3D.

5.2 Future Work

Wiener filter is widely used in many areas of image processing including image compression,
denoising, restoration, transmission, registration, projection and video rendering. Wiener filter
is also used for computer graphics, statistical signal processing and audio signal processing. As

68
Chapter 5. Conclusion and Future Work 69

long as the Wiener filter involves a 2D discrete signal, our proposed improvement guarantees to
perform better since all other Wiener filters are optimized for MSE. Hence, one possible future
work for our study can be a rigorous review of where else our proposed method can contribute.
There are other variants of SSIM recently proposed called Multi Scale Structural Similarity
(MS-SSIM) [37]. One good future work is to observe the affect of our proposed improvement
over Wiener filter as well as over BM3D using the MS-SSIM instead of SSIM. Also, there are
other image quality measurement metrics such as Image Quality Index (IQI) [38], Normalized
Correlation [39], Sum of Absolute Differences and many others [40]. A possible future work
should test our proposed method by using all of these measures, instead of only using SSIM
and present the differences.
BM3D is specially designed for reducing AWGN. However, there are other additive noise
like exponential noise, gamma noise and Rayleigh noise which are very similar in nature to
AWGN. One possible future work is play with all these noises and observe if BM3D is good
for other noise types, too.
In recent years, BM3D has been extended for video denoising. Also there is BM4D already
present [22]. Since our idea is to change the core of BMxD in general, a study of assessing
our method in all BMxD versions will be a good possible future work.
BM3D has different response to non-textured images as it does not find more similar blocks
needed for collaborative filtering [14]. In order to get more number of similar blocks, one can
check if taking variable size blocks may give us so. That is, we can rescale blocks of different
size that are structurally similar and see if that improves the performance of BM3D for the non
textured images where it is difficult to find similar blocks.
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Appendix A

Detail Objective Experimental Results

In this chapter, we will present detail objective experimental results of some selective cases of
our experiments. We consider that the Wavelet Profile and Color Profile of BM3D are more
significant than the DC-Only profile and main stream focus in the study of image denoising.
Therefore, we present all the experimental results of Wavelet and Color profiles in this chapter.

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 33.15 33.13 0.931550 0.932690
Barbara 34.92 34.92 0.941430 0.941430
Boat 33.87 33.87 0.887070 0.887070
Couple 34.00 34.00 0.907880 0.907880
10
Hill 33.58 33.58 0.883120 0.883120
Lena 35.86 35.87 0.915690 0.915070
Man 33.92 33.92 0.906480 0.906480
Peppers 34.05 33.99 0.854190 0.849810
Average 34.17 34.16 0.903430 0.902940

Table A.1: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 10

73
Appendix A. 74

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 29.02 29.05 0.848660 0.850620
Barbara 31.62 31.73 0.903390 0.904950
Boat 30.86 30.84 0.827120 0.824540
Couple 30.78 30.77 0.846980 0.845820
20
Hill 30.71 30.66 0.805920 0.802080
Lena 32.87 33.07 0.872560 0.877150
Man 30.61 30.56 0.835330 0.832630
Peppers 31.88 32.09 0.808170 0.812260
Average 31.04 31.10 0.843516 0.843756

Table A.2: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 20

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 26.86 26.82 0.776360 0.772650
Barbara 29.45 29.71 0.857860 0.865290
Boat 28.91 29.06 0.774270 0.777990
Couple 28.78 28.84 0.791530 0.792490
30
Hill 28.95 29.01 0.748810 0.747080
Lena 30.71 31.18 0.821120 0.841970
Man 28.80 28.85 0.777730 0.779060
Peppers 30.15 30.75 0.761910 0.786850
Average 29.08 29.28 0.788699 0.795423

Table A.3: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 30

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 25.24 25.21 0.710480 0.698040
Barbara 27.46 28.00 0.801790 0.821250
Boat 27.25 27.59 0.718020 0.733090
Couple 27.03 27.33 0.728720 0.740180
40
Hill 27.55 27.88 0.688940 0.701360
Lena 28.90 29.78 0.765250 0.814680
Man 27.19 27.50 0.715510 0.732000
Peppers 28.73 29.65 0.716380 0.764400
Average 27.42 27.87 0.730636 0.750625

Table A.4: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 40

Appendix A. 75

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 24.52 24.35 0.657970 0.638940
Barbara 27.02 27.23 0.779400 0.792810
Boat 26.57 26.67 0.686130 0.698350
Couple 26.36 26.43 0.700950 0.706620
50
Hill 26.83 27.05 0.660690 0.670120
Lena 28.29 28.97 0.745130 0.795930
Man 26.59 26.75 0.684520 0.700400
Peppers 28.15 28.92 0.698030 0.751380
Average 26.79 27.05 0.701603 0.719319

Table A.5: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 50

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 23.78 23.63 0.618860 0.594590
Barbara 25.90 26.30 0.730790 0.760850
Boat 25.71 25.97 0.643800 0.670080
Couple 25.37 25.63 0.646710 0.667810
60
Hill 25.97 26.43 0.614980 0.643080
Lena 27.20 28.05 0.697690 0.773000
Man 25.68 26.08 0.639080 0.674720
Peppers 27.16 28.16 0.658840 0.731950
Average 25.85 26.28 0.656344 0.689510

Table A.6: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 60

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 23.03 22.99 0.573580 0.552350
Barbara 25.00 25.47 0.682850 0.725100
Boat 24.89 25.33 0.601890 0.647450
Couple 24.62 24.95 0.608490 0.639370
70
Hill 25.23 25.85 0.574340 0.617100
Lena 26.37 27.49 0.655380 0.758650
Man 25.08 25.61 0.605760 0.657400
Peppers 26.26 27.47 0.618070 0.713190
Average 25.06 25.65 0.615045 0.663826

Table A.7: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 70

Appendix A. 76

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 22.48 22.55 0.527810 0.513720
Barbara 24.27 24.80 0.642830 0.697260
Boat 24.19 24.77 0.563100 0.626100
Couple 23.87 24.40 0.564140 0.614420
80
Hill 24.55 25.36 0.533760 0.596140
Lena 25.62 26.94 0.615430 0.741450
Man 24.41 25.12 0.562440 0.635770
Peppers 25.62 26.96 0.591390 0.701900
Average 24.37 25.11 0.575113 0.640845

Table A.8: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 80

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 22.02 22.19 0.497240 0.487390
Barbara 23.37 24.06 0.586400 0.658840
Boat 23.57 24.32 0.527020 0.606510
Couple 23.25 23.90 0.525320 0.586880
90
Hill 23.92 24.89 0.502380 0.579110
Lena 24.90 26.39 0.563140 0.721340
Man 23.73 24.56 0.520240 0.610960
Peppers 24.85 26.39 0.546950 0.686100
Average 23.70 24.59 0.533586 0.617141

Table A.9: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 90

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 21.55 21.87 0.462840 0.465420
Barbara 22.84 23.59 0.556010 0.639640
Boat 23.00 23.95 0.488360 0.591060
Couple 22.74 23.53 0.490430 0.567970
100
Hill 23.39 24.54 0.466490 0.560120
Lena 24.25 25.85 0.531180 0.702630
Man 23.14 24.21 0.488750 0.597690
Peppers 24.28 25.94 0.518950 0.673760
Average 23.15 24.18 0.500376 0.599786

Table A.10: Wavelet (Normal) Profile for σ = 100

Appendix A. 77

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 33.16 33.13 0.931270 0.932390
Barbara 34.93 34.93 0.941350 0.941350
Boat 33.87 33.87 0.887670 0.887670
Couple 33.99 33.99 0.907610 0.907610
10
Hill 33.60 33.60 0.883600 0.883600
Lena 35.89 35.91 0.916760 0.916310
Man 33.92 33.92 0.907000 0.907000
Peppers 34.05 33.98 0.853710 0.849260
Average 34.18 34.17 0.903621 0.903149

Table A.11: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 10

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 29.04 29.07 0.849380 0.851240
Barbara 31.59 31.71 0.902770 0.904420
Boat 30.84 30.82 0.827640 0.824730
Couple 30.74 30.72 0.846240 0.845060
20
Hill 30.72 30.67 0.807060 0.803010
Lena 32.88 33.09 0.872300 0.877400
Man 30.63 30.57 0.836150 0.833180
Peppers 31.85 32.07 0.808370 0.812580
Average 31.04 31.09 0.843739 0.843953

Table A.12: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 20

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 26.86 26.81 0.777110 0.773470
Barbara 29.46 29.73 0.858710 0.865560
Boat 28.90 29.02 0.774490 0.777430
Couple 28.75 28.81 0.791140 0.791940
30
Hill 29.03 29.07 0.748180 0.746190
Lena 30.63 31.16 0.819620 0.842590
Man 28.78 28.81 0.778150 0.778250
Peppers 30.17 30.75 0.762690 0.786600
Average 29.07 29.27 0.788761 0.795254

Table A.13: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 30

Appendix A. 78

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 25.22 25.19 0.711180 0.700260
Barbara 27.40 27.93 0.800450 0.819870
Boat 27.30 27.67 0.716920 0.733740
Couple 27.14 27.43 0.730820 0.742630
40
Hill 27.63 27.92 0.695310 0.705710
Lena 28.94 29.84 0.765740 0.814980
Man 27.28 27.59 0.717220 0.734890
Peppers 28.70 29.68 0.714800 0.764820
Average 27.45 27.91 0.731555 0.752113

Table A.14: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 40

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 24.49 24.33 0.658580 0.639940
Barbara 27.01 27.28 0.780420 0.796500
Boat 26.62 26.73 0.691200 0.703540
Couple 26.35 26.40 0.698540 0.703520
50
Hill 26.91 27.12 0.661850 0.670750
Lena 28.28 28.93 0.743470 0.795380
Man 26.59 26.77 0.688190 0.703670
Peppers 28.19 28.95 0.701300 0.750360
Average 26.81 27.06 0.702944 0.720458

Table A.15: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 50

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 23.68 23.51 0.612070 0.588070
Barbara 26.07 26.44 0.737710 0.765210
Boat 25.64 25.88 0.644410 0.669640
Couple 25.49 25.68 0.652200 0.670660
60
Hill 26.03 26.47 0.615600 0.642310
Lena 27.19 28.10 0.696380 0.774610
Man 25.74 26.11 0.639820 0.675620
Peppers 27.25 28.25 0.664070 0.733950
Average 25.89 26.30 0.657783 0.690009

Table A.16: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 60

Appendix A. 79

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 23.06 22.97 0.571170 0.547940
Barbara 24.90 25.39 0.682100 0.723670
Boat 24.94 25.38 0.605550 0.651390
Couple 24.59 24.97 0.602640 0.636160
70
Hill 25.28 25.83 0.575470 0.615920
Lena 26.36 27.49 0.654900 0.758500
Man 25.05 25.57 0.600520 0.653470
Peppers 26.34 27.45 0.622630 0.715710
Average 25.07 25.63 0.614373 0.662845

Table A.17: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 70

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 22.47 22.54 0.529530 0.515860
Barbara 24.26 24.79 0.640930 0.695970
Boat 24.20 24.79 0.563420 0.627060
Couple 23.88 24.43 0.561090 0.611460
80
Hill 24.49 25.30 0.538900 0.597960
Lena 25.64 26.90 0.615660 0.741220
Man 24.39 25.08 0.566210 0.634450
Peppers 25.70 27.08 0.586170 0.706230
Average 24.38 25.11 0.575239 0.641276

Table A.18: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 80

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 22.05 22.23 0.504750 0.495060
Barbara 23.59 24.28 0.596710 0.668320
Boat 23.54 24.27 0.525470 0.605780
Couple 23.37 24.00 0.526530 0.589610
90
Hill 23.93 24.92 0.505360 0.580120
Lena 24.91 26.37 0.576250 0.724210
Man 23.70 24.60 0.519100 0.613200
Peppers 24.94 26.47 0.555980 0.688920
Average 23.76 24.64 0.538769 0.620653

Table A.19: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 90

Appendix A. 80

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Baboon 21.53 21.87 0.462160 0.467680
Barbara 22.79 23.62 0.551840 0.638910
Boat 23.07 23.97 0.490560 0.589510
Couple 22.76 23.53 0.486420 0.563620
100
Hill 23.45 24.60 0.471760 0.564500
Lena 24.17 25.80 0.528330 0.702180
Man 23.16 24.21 0.489100 0.596650
Peppers 24.22 25.81 0.517770 0.671540
Average 23.14 24.17 0.499743 0.599324

Table A.20: Wavelet (Fast) Profile for σ = 100

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 35.24 35.23 0.935030 0.934250
Peppers 33.83 33.79 0.904260 0.902250
10
Baboon 30.49 30.62 0.937620 0.940970
Barbara 36.86 36.81 0.972040 0.971880
Average 34.11 34.11 0.937238 0.937338

Table A.21: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 10

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 32.92 33.00 0.904030 0.903970
Peppers 31.75 31.83 0.867290 0.867650
20
Baboon 26.90 26.96 0.866510 0.870060
Barbara 33.58 33.61 0.947340 0.947610
Average 31.29 31.35 0.896293 0.897323

Table A.22: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 20

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 31.38 31.61 0.876160 0.880430
Peppers 30.42 30.65 0.843170 0.849110
30
Baboon 25.09 25.13 0.800900 0.804800
Barbara 31.35 31.43 0.920010 0.920900
Average 29.56 29.70 0.860060 0.863810

Table A.23: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 30

Appendix A. 81

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 29.73 30.13 0.840850 0.851660
Peppers 28.96 29.33 0.812880 0.826620
40
Baboon 23.88 23.86 0.742130 0.739960
Barbara 29.09 29.22 0.876960 0.877850
Average 27.92 28.14 0.818205 0.824023

Table A.24: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 40

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 29.56 29.90 0.832130 0.845410
Peppers 28.63 28.94 0.801940 0.819060
50
Baboon 23.11 23.14 0.683650 0.687760
Barbara 29.14 29.21 0.872620 0.873540
Average 27.61 27.80 0.797585 0.806443

Table A.25: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 50

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 28.76 29.19 0.806080 0.828030
Peppers 27.83 28.28 0.777150 0.807110
60
Baboon 22.53 22.49 0.646220 0.640570
Barbara 28.10 28.30 0.844300 0.849520
Average 26.81 27.06 0.768438 0.781308

Table A.26: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 60

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 27.93 28.58 0.772070 0.812010
Peppers 27.10 27.70 0.751830 0.795980
70
Baboon 22.05 21.95 0.610580 0.595720
Barbara 27.20 27.51 0.813440 0.825370
Average 26.07 26.43 0.736980 0.757270

Table A.27: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 70

Appendix A. 82

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 27.29 28.10 0.747080 0.800860
Peppers 26.47 27.16 0.728130 0.785180
80
Baboon 21.66 21.54 0.580320 0.558810
Barbara 26.45 26.91 0.782770 0.804290
Average 25.47 25.93 0.709575 0.737285

Table A.28: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 80

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 26.70 27.65 0.715120 0.786420
Peppers 25.88 26.61 0.704160 0.774070
90
Baboon 21.28 21.16 0.555180 0.527250
Barbara 25.70 26.27 0.751730 0.781510
Average 24.89 25.42 0.681548 0.717313

Table A.29: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 90

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 26.02 27.06 0.688520 0.771150
Peppers 25.17 26.05 0.672260 0.758670
100
Baboon 20.86 20.73 0.520520 0.485160
Barbara 24.88 25.56 0.713900 0.753910
Average 24.23 24.85 0.648800 0.692223

Table A.30: Color (Normal) Profile for σ = 100

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 35.12 35.12 0.933100 0.933100
Peppers 33.75 33.73 0.903720 0.902220
10
Baboon 30.42 30.47 0.938690 0.940010
Barbara 36.52 36.52 0.970120 0.970120
Average 33.95 33.96 0.936408 0.936363

Table A.31: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 10

Appendix A. 83

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 32.60 32.78 0.899840 0.901480
Peppers 31.56 31.68 0.863260 0.864550
20
Baboon 26.75 26.77 0.866120 0.867670
Barbara 33.07 33.13 0.942630 0.943110
Average 31.00 31.09 0.892963 0.894203

Table A.32: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 20

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 30.82 31.19 0.866390 0.873410
Peppers 29.93 30.31 0.833470 0.842960
30
Baboon 24.89 24.90 0.797860 0.799560
Barbara 30.57 30.74 0.909140 0.911700
Average 29.05 29.28 0.851715 0.856908

Table A.33: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 30

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 28.98 29.47 0.824800 0.839020
Peppers 28.32 28.73 0.797520 0.813570
40
Baboon 23.63 23.61 0.735600 0.730090
Barbara 28.34 28.55 0.857420 0.860880
Average 27.32 27.59 0.803835 0.810890

Table A.34: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 40

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 29.29 29.57 0.834980 0.842280
Peppers 28.48 28.75 0.805850 0.816570
50
Baboon 23.00 23.08 0.675960 0.687070
Barbara 28.76 28.77 0.863960 0.863920
Average 27.38 27.54 0.795188 0.802460

Table A.35: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 50

Appendix A. 84

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 28.34 28.83 0.808630 0.825300
Peppers 27.57 28.02 0.780250 0.802030
60
Baboon 22.38 22.41 0.633920 0.637390
Barbara 27.72 27.80 0.836110 0.836890
Average 26.50 26.77 0.764728 0.775403

Table A.36: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 60

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 27.54 28.13 0.779980 0.805430
Peppers 26.83 27.36 0.759110 0.789420
70
Baboon 21.90 21.88 0.600930 0.596450
Barbara 26.86 27.10 0.810580 0.815890
Average 25.78 26.12 0.737650 0.751798

Table A.37: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 70

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 26.88 27.64 0.756980 0.795180
Peppers 26.19 26.85 0.736940 0.778840
80
Baboon 21.48 21.44 0.568940 0.559870
Barbara 25.99 26.34 0.776050 0.787320
Average 25.13 25.57 0.709728 0.730303

Table A.38: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 80

Appendix A. 85

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 26.05 26.99 0.727660 0.778340
Peppers 25.39 26.18 0.709910 0.765200
90
Baboon 21.02 20.96 0.535580 0.516550
Barbara 25.21 25.70 0.748880 0.767860
Average 24.42 24.96 0.680508 0.706988

Table A.39: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 90

PSNR SSIM
Noise Level Image Name BM3D Proposed Method BM3D Proposed Method
Lenna 25.24 26.22 0.695060 0.755510
Peppers 24.70 25.51 0.687930 0.751310
100
Baboon 20.60 20.51 0.501250 0.468520
Barbara 24.24 24.66 0.709110 0.727950
Average 23.69 24.22 0.648338 0.675823

Table A.40: Color (Fast) Profile for σ = 100

Appendix B

Detail Subjective Experimental Results

In this chapter we present some selective output images from our proposed method as well as
from original BM3D for visual inspection. We choose Barbara, Lena and Peppers from Wavelet
and Color Profiles and present their outputs for noise standard deviation σ = 40, σ = 70 and
σ = 100. The reason for choosing these three values of σ is that σ = 40 is considered to be
maximum value of σ for lower level of noise. We consider σ = 70 as moderate level of noise
and σ = 100 as extreme level of noise.

86
Appendix B. 87

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.90dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.765. PSNR=29.78dB, SSIM=0.815.

Figure B.1: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 88

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.37dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.655. PSNR=27.49dB, SSIM=0.759.

Figure B.2: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 89

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.25dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.531. PSNR=25.85dB, SSIM=0.703.

Figure B.3: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 90

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.46dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.802. PSNR=28.00dB, SSIM=0.821.

Figure B.4: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 91

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=25.00dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.683. PSNR=25.47dB, SSIM=0.725.

Figure B.5: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 92

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=22.84dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.556. PSNR=23.59dB, SSIM=0.640.

Figure B.6: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 93

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.73dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.716. PSNR=29.65dB, SSIM=0.764.

Figure B.7: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 94

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.26dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.618. PSNR=27.47dB, SSIM=0.713.

Figure B.8: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 95

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.28dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.519. PSNR=25.94dB, SSIM=0.674.

Figure B.9: Wavelet (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 96

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.94dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.766. PSNR=29.84dB, SSIM=0.815.

Figure B.10: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 97

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.36dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.655. PSNR=27.49dB, SSIM=0.756.

Figure B.11: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 98

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.17dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.528. PSNR=25.80dB, SSIM=0.702.

Figure B.12: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 99

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.40dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.800. PSNR=27.93dB, SSIM=0.820.

Figure B.13: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 100

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.90dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.682. PSNR=25.39dB, SSIM=0.724.

Figure B.14: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 101

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=22.79dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.552. PSNR=23.62dB, SSIM=0.639.

Figure B.15: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 102

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.73dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.716. PSNR=29.65dB, SSIM=0.764.

Figure B.16: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 103

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.26dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.618. PSNR=27.47dB, SSIM=0.713.

Figure B.17: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 104

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.28dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.519. PSNR=25.94dB, SSIM=0.674.

Figure B.18: Wavelet (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 105

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=29.73dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.841. PSNR=30.13dB, SSIM=0.852.

Figure B.19: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 106

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.93dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.772. PSNR=28.58dB, SSIM=0.812.

Figure B.20: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 107

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.02dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.689. PSNR=27.06dB, SSIM=0.771.

Figure B.21: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 108

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.96dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.813. PSNR=29.33dB, SSIM=0.827.

Figure B.22: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 109

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.10dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.752. PSNR=27.70dB, SSIM=0.796.

Figure B.23: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 110

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=25.17dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.672. PSNR=26.05dB, SSIM=0.759.

Figure B.24: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 111

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=29.09dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.877. PSNR=29.22dB, SSIM=0.878.

Figure B.25: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 112

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.20dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.813. PSNR=27.51dB, SSIM=0.825.

Figure B.26: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 113

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.88dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.714. PSNR=25.56dB, SSIM=0.754.

Figure B.27: Color (Normal) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 114

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.98dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.825. PSNR=29.47dB, SSIM=0.839.

Figure B.28: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 115

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=27.54dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.780. PSNR=28.13dB, SSIM=0.805.

Figure B.29: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 116

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=25.24dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.695. PSNR=26.22dB, SSIM=0.756.

Figure B.30: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Lena Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 117

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.32dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.798. PSNR=28.72dB, SSIM=0.814.

Figure B.31: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 118

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.83dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.759. PSNR=27.36dB, SSIM=0.789.

Figure B.32: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 119

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.70dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.688. PSNR=25.51dB, SSIM=0.751.

Figure B.33: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Peppers Image for σ = 100
Appendix B. 120

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 40

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=28.34dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.857. PSNR=28.55dB, SSIM=0.861.

Figure B.34: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 40

Appendix B. 121

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 70

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=26.86dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.811. PSNR=27.10dB, SSIM=0.816.

Figure B.35: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 70

Appendix B. 122

(a) True Image (b) Noise Added with σ = 100

(c) Denoised by BM3D. PSNR=24.24dB, (d) Denoised by Proposed Method.

SSIM=0.709. PSNR=24.66dB, SSIM=0.728.

Figure B.36: Color (Fast) Profile Output of Barbara Image for σ = 100
Curriculum Vitae

Name: Mahmud Hasan

Post-Secondary Bachelor of Science in Computer Science & Engineering

Education and Department of Computer Science & Engineering
Degrees: Chittagong University of Engineering & Technology (CUET)
Chittagong, Bangladesh.
2007 - 2011

Honours and Dean’s Honor List for being Highest CGPA Scorer
Awards: CUET, 2011

Related Work Teaching Assistant & Research Assistant

Experience: The University of Western Ontario
2013 - 2014

Lecturer
Department of Allied Engineering
Bangladesh University of Textiles
2012-2013

Lecturer
Department of Computer Science
Stamford University Bangladesh
2011-2012

Publications:
Under Review

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