This application claims the benefit, under 35 U.S.C. § 365 of International Application PCT/EP02/08810, filed Aug. 6, 2002, which was published in accordance with PCT Article 21(2) on Mar. 6, 2003 in English and which claims the benefit of French patent application No. 0110977, filed Aug. 21, 2001.
The present invention pertains to a device and to a process for estimating noise level as well as to a noise reduction system and to a coding system comprising such a device.
It relates to noise level estimation techniques applied to digital video signals. These techniques for estimating noise level are used in noise reduction techniques. Noise reduction techniques are generally applied to digital video images taking the form of a matrix of samples; each sample is composed of a luminance signal and, for a colour signal, of a chrominance signal.
The acquisiton of video image sequences is today still widely carried out in analogue form so that the images, once acquired and possibly forwarded and stored in analogue formats, exhibit an appreciable share of noise in their content. Once digitized, these images are also often subjected to storage/editing operations which, in their turn, introduce noise of a digital nature, this time. Finally, an image sequence generally undergoes a succession of transformations resulting in spatio-temporal noise of a strongly random nature.
To obtain high-performance functioning, noise reduction methods calling upon recursive filtering consider the very strong temporal correlation of the images of a video sequence. Consequently, the concepts of motion and of displacement are important in the fine-tuning of effective noise reduction.
The term <<displacement>> is understood to mean the change in position of an object in a scene, this change in position being localized and specific to this object. The term <<motion>> is understood to mean the entire set of displacements of objects in a video sequence.
Motion is conventionally detected either by simple image-to-image differencing, or by using a motion estimator.
When a motion estimator is used, the displacements are taken into account by computing image differences at distinct instants as well as by moving spatially within the frames. These displacements are represented by motion vector fields applied to pixels (pixelwise motion estimation) or to blocks (blockwise motion estimation). Motion-compensated image differences, called DFDs (Displacement Frame Differences), are thus obtained pixelwise or blockwise.
In known systems, the estimation of the noise level is done at the level of the image frames. This estimation leads to the noise being made uniform over the frame, and consequently the filtering also, this possibly giving rise to certain defects such as loss of definition over certain noise-free zones, the appearance of blur or the smoothing of certain textures (lawns for example). Such systems are for example described in French Patent Application 009684 filed on 24 Jul. 2000 in the name of the Thomson Multimédia Company.
The present invention relates to a device for estimating noise level based on local estimation of noise thus taking into account its strongly random character. The negative effects set forth hereinabove are then considerably reduced contributing to an increase in image quality.
The invention also pertains to a noise reduction system and to a coding system comprising such a device as well as to a corresponding motion-compensated recursive filtering process.
To this end, the invention concerns a device for estimating the noise level of video images before coding comprising:
according to the invention this device comprises:
The expression << quantities representative of motion-compensated image variations>> is understood to mean quantities which gauge temporal modifications in an image sequence (preferably blockwise) by taking account of motion estimation. These quantities advantageously consist of the DFDs.
The DFDs are fairly well representative of the amount of noise contained in a video sequence. The DFDs even give an exact expression for it if the motion compensation is ideal (that is to say if the compensation is perfect, regardless of the nature of the motion and the deformations).
By taking account of the strongly random nature of the noise, the estimation of a local noise level makes it possible to decrease the filtering artefacts; the latter are the direct consequence of a uniform noise level over the frame synonymous with identical filtering over a noisy block and over a noise-free block.
Thus, the estimation of the noise level at the local level makes it possible to reduce in particular the strong loss of definition over the noise-free zones of the image, the appearance of blur and the smoothing of certain textures, for example, lawns.
By estimating the local noise level as a function of the global noise level of the frame, it is possible to situate the noise level of the current block with respect to the global noise level of the frame and thus to improve the estimation of the global noise level.
Preferably, the said quantities representative of motion-compensated image variations for determining the said global noise level are a minimum quantity and a mean quantity which are calculated by the blockwise motion estimation module.
Preferably, the said quantities representative of motion-compensated image variations for determining the said local noise level are a local quantity and a mean quantity which are calculated by the blockwise motion estimation module.
According to a preferred embodiment, the means of estimation of a local noise level are designed to determine the local noise level as a function of the difference between the mean DFD and the local DFD and as a function of the ratio of the said difference to the mean DFD.
Preferably, the local noise level is adjusted differently as a function of the comparison between the values of the said difference and at least one predetermined threshold value.
This makes it possible to adjust the noise level as a function of predetermined thresholds and thus to limit the fluctuations in the local noise level by prohibiting the local noise level from departing from a range of predefined values.
The invention also relates to a noise reduction device comprising a device for estimating noise level in accordance with the invention.
The invention also pertains to a coding system comprising a device for estimating the noise level in accordance with the invention.
It applies also to a process for estimating the noise level of video images before coding in which:
According to the invention,
The invention will be better understood and illustrated by means of wholly nonlimiting, advantageous exemplary embodiments and modes of implementation, with reference to the appended figures in which:
The following notation is employed:
The filtering device comprises a memory 1, designed to store an input image (signal u(x,y ;t)) and a blockwise motion estimator 2, designed to produce, blockwise, motion vectors d(dx,dy) and DFDs, on the basis of a current input image (signal u(x,y ;t)) and of an input image previously stored (signal u(x,y ;t−T)) in the memory 1.
The device is also provided with a module 3 for estimating a noise level global to the image as a function of the mean DFD (DFDmean) and minimum DFD (DFDmin).
It also comprises a memory 5 for storing the local DFDs for the instant t. The mean DFD is calculated after having traversed all the local DFDs of the frame.
It also comprises a module 4 for estimating a local noise level for a block as a function of the noise level σglobal calculated by the module 3 for estimating a noise level global to the image, of the local DFD (DFD(x,y ;t)) and of the mean DFD (DFDmean). The functioning of this module is detailed in
The mean DFD (DFDmean) and the minimum DFD (DFDmin) are calculated previously, before calculating the local DFD (DFD(x,y ;t)).
It finally comprises a module 6 for reducing the motion-adapted and/or compensated noise level, as a function of the displacement vector d(dx,dy) and of the local noise level σlocal (x,y ;t).
The module 6 outputs the current filtered image v(x,y ;t).
The module 6 can be a filtering module applied to the noise reduction or more generally an image processing module.
The minimum DFD (DFDmin) output by the blockwise motion estimation module 2 can be calculated in various ways.
According to a first embodiment, it can represent the minimum DFD of the frame. This solution is simple and inexpensive but inaccurate since it suffices for one of the DFDs to be small in order to have a small minimum DFD. This therefore gives:
with
According to a second embodiment, the DFDmin represents a percentage of the minimum DFDs of the frame. In this embodiment, the DFDmin is therefore calculated on the basis of a set of values and hence does not represent a single value as in the previous embodiment. This solution is therefore more accurate but more complex since it requires that all the DFDs of the frame be ranked.
The mean DFD, DFDmean, represents the mean of all the DFDs of the frame. The mean DFD is therefore the sum of the local DFDs over the number of DFDs in the frame. This therefore gives:
By way of illustrative example, for a frame with resolution 720*288 and blocks of 16*8, there are (720/16)*(288/8) DFDs i.e. 1620 DFDs. In this case, the mean is computed over these 1620 DFDs and is assigned to the mean DFD.
This module receives as input the local DFD of the block being processed DFD(x,y ;t), the mean DFD DFDmean as well as the global noise level σglobal.
This module carries out a local adaptation of the noise level as a function of the mean DFD DFDmean and of the local DFD DFD(x,y ;t) of the current block. This adaptation is controlled on the one hand by the difference (ERROR_DFD) between the mean DFD and the local DFD and on the other hand by the ratio (Ratio_DFD) of this difference to the mean DFD.
The difference between the mean DFD and the local DFD determines the direction of variation of the adaptation; specifically, when the error is positive (signifying that the local DFD is less than the mean DFD) the noise level must be decreased. Conversely, when the error is negative, it brings. about an increase in the noise level.
The ratio of the difference between the mean DFD and the local DFD to the mean DFD marks, in a form normalized with respect to the mean DFD, the error incurred.
So as not to make a binary correction which would create visible artifacts on the image, one solution is to make a correction as a function of the thresholds. The range of variation of the error ERROR_DFD is therefore partitioned into several zones.
The example, given by way of illustration hereinbelow, defines two thresholds partitioning this range into four zones, as is represented in
Weighting coefficients β1 and β2 allow greater or lesser accentuation of the effect of the local adjustment. Various ways of effecting this weighting are possible and the exemplary embodiment proposed is given merely by way of illustration.
We shall now describe
The module 4 receives as input the mean DFD DFDmean and the local DFD (DFD(x,y ;t)) and calculates during step E1 the difference between the mean DFD and the local DFD called ERROR_DFD.
In the course of step E2, it performs a comparison test to determine whether this difference is positive or negative.
If this difference is negative, it goes to step E3 of comparing this difference with the threshold S2.
If ERROR_DFD is greater than or equal to the threshold S2, then it goes to step E4. In the course of step E4, the local noise level is increased. By way of illustration, the increase can be performed using the following formula:
σlocal=σglobal−Ratio—DFD×β2
If ERROR_DFD is less than S2, then it goes to step E5. In the course of step E5, it performs a test and compares the value of the displacement vector d(x,y) with a motion threshold S3. If d(x,y) is greater than S3, then it goes to step E7. In the course of step E7, the local noise level is increased and thresheld. By way of illustration, this can be done in the following manner:
σlocal=σglobal+β2/2
If d(x,y) is less than or equal to S3, then it goes to step E6 in the course of which the local noise level is increased. By way of illustration, this may be done as follows:
σlocal=σglobal−Ratio—DFD×β2
If, in the course of step E2, ERROR_DFD is positive, then it goes to step E8 of comparing this difference with the threshold S1.
If ERROR_DFD is less than or eqaul to the threshold S1, then it goes to step E9. In the course of step E9, the local noise level is decreased. By way of illustration, the decrease can be performed using the following formula:
σlocal=σglobal−Ratio—DFD×β1
If ERROR_DFD is greater than the threshold S1, then it goes to step E10. In the course of step E10 the local noise level is decreased and a thresholding performed according to the following formula given by way of illustration:
σlocal=σglobal−β1/2
Next it goes to step E11 in the course of which the value of the local noise level is smoothed by imposing a minimum value αmin and a maximum value αmax. The final value of the noise level which is obtained is either the value obtained during steps E4, E6, E7, E9 or E10 or αmax if this value is greater than αmax or αmin if this value is less than αmin.
In certain particular embodiments, by way of illustration, the following values may be taken for the various thresholds.
To reveal a symmetry, it will be possible to take S1=|S2| and β2=β1.
S1=0.5×DFD_mean,
S2=−0.5×DFD_mean,
β2=β1=6, (these coefficients are akin to β)
S3=20.
αmin=3.5
αmax=15.5
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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01 10977 | Aug 2001 | FR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP02/08810 | 8/6/2002 | WO | 00 | 2/19/2004 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO03/019947 | 3/6/2003 | WO | A |
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