Filter

Sliding Window Filters
Longin Jan Latecki

latecki@temple.edu
October 9, 2002
Linear Image Filters
Linear operations calculate the resulting value in the output
image pixel f(i,j) as a linear combination of brightness in a
local neighborhood of the pixel h(i,j) in the input image.
This equation is called to discrete convolution:
a b
f (i, j )  w * h    w(m, n)h(i  m, j  n)
m a nb
Function w is called a convolution kernel or a filter mask. In

our case it is a rectangle of size (2a+1)x(2b+1).
Exercise:
Compute the 2-D linear convolution of the
following two signal X with mask w.
Extend the signal X with 0’s where needed.
1 2 3
X  4 5 6, w   1 0 1
3 4 1
Image smoothing = image blurring
Averaging of brightness values is a special case of discrete
convolution. For a 3 x 3 neighborhood the convolution mask w is
1 1 1
1
w  1 1 1
9
1 1 1
Applying this mask to an image results in smoothing.
Matlab example program is filterEx1.m
•Local image smoothing can effectively eliminate impulsive noise

or degradations appearing as thin stripes, but does not work if
degradations are large blobs or thick stripes.
The significance of the central pixel may be increased to
better reflect properties of Gaussian noise:
1 1 1 1 2 1 
1 
1 
w  1 2 1 w  2 4 2
10 16
1 1 1 1 2 1 
Edge detectors
•locate sharp changes in the intensity function
•edges are pixels where brightness changes abruptly.
•Calculus describes changes of continuous functions using

derivatives; an image function depends on two variables -
partial derivatives.
•A change of the image function can be described by a gradient
that points in the direction of the largest growth of the image
function.
•An edge is a property attached to an individual pixel and is
calculated from the image function behavior in a neighborhood
of the pixel.
•It is a vector variable:
magnitude of the gradient and direction
•The gradient direction gives the direction of maximal growth
of the function, e.g., from black (f(i,j)=0) to white (f(i,j)=255).
•This is illustrated below; closed lines are lines of the same
brightness.
•The orientation 0° points East.
•Edges are often used in image analysis for finding region
boundaries.
•Boundary and its parts (edges) are perpendicular to the direction of
the gradient.
•The gradient magnitude and gradient direction are continuous
image functions, where arg(x,y) is the angle (in radians) from the
x-axis to the point (x,y).
•Sometimes we are interested only in edge magnitudes without
regard to their orientations.
•The Laplacian may be used.
•The Laplacian has the same properties in all directions and is
therefore invariant to rotation in the image.
•The Laplace operator is a very popular operator

approximating the second derivative which gives the
gradient magnitude only.
•The Laplacian is approximated in digital images by a convolution
sum.
•A 3 x 3 mask for 4-neighborhoods and 8-neighborhood
•A Laplacian operator with stressed significance of the

central pixel or its neighborhood is sometimes used. In this
approximation it loses invariance to rotation
•A digital image is discrete in nature, derivatives must be
approximated by differences.
•The first differences of the image g in the vertical
direction (for fixed i) and in the horizontal direction (for
fixed j)
•n is a small integer, usually 1.
The value n should be chosen small enough to provide a good

approximation to the derivative, but large enough to neglect
unimportant changes in the image function.
•Gradient operators can be divided into three categories
I. Operators approximating derivatives of the image function using

differences.
•rotationally invariant (e.g., Laplacian) need one convolution mask
only. Individual gradient operators that examine small local
neighborhoods are in fact convolutions and can be expressed by
convolution masks.
•approximating first derivatives use several masks, the orientation is

estimated on the basis of the best matching of several simple
patterns. Operators which are able to detect edge direction. Each
mask corresponds to a certain direction.
II. Operators based on the zero crossings of the image function
second derivative (e.g., Marr-Hildreth or Canny edge detector).
III. Operators which attempt to match an image function to a

parametric model of edges. Parametric models describe edges more
precisely than simple edge magnitude and direction and are much
more computationally intensive.
The categories II and III will not be covered here;

Roberts operator
•The magnitude of the edge is computed as
The primary disadvantage of the Roberts operator is its high

sensitivity to noise, because very few pixels are used to
approximate the gradient.
Prewitt operator
•The Prewitt operator approximates the first derivative, similarly to
the Sobel, Kirsch, Robinson and some other operators that follow.
•Operators approximating first derivative of an image function are
sometimes called compass operators because of the ability to
determine gradient direction.
•The gradient is estimated in eight (for a 3 x 3 convolution mask)
possible directions. Larger masks are possible.
•The direction of the gradient is given by the mask giving maximal
response. This is valid for all following operators approximating the
first derivative.
Sobel operator
•Used as a simple detector of horizontality and verticality of edges in

which case only masks h1 and h3 are used.
•If the h1 response is y and the h3 response x, we might then derive
edge strength (magnitude) as
and direction as arctan (y / x).
Matlab example program is filterEx1.m

Robinson operator
Kirsch operator
Nonlinear Image Filters
Median is an order filter, it uses order statistics.

Given an NxN window W(x,y) with pixel (x,y) being the
midpoint of W, the pixel intensity values of pixels in W
are ordered from smallest to the largest, as follow:
I1  I 2  I 3  ...  I N 2
Median filter selects the middle value as the value of (x,y).
110 110 104

W ( x, y )  100 114 104  Median(W ( x, y ))  104
 95 88 85 
Morphological Filter
dilation(W ( x, y ))  max(W ( x, y ))
erosion (W ( x, y ))  min(W ( x, y ))
opening  dilation  erosion
clo sin g  erosion  dilation
110 110 104

W ( x, y )  100 114 104  dilation(W ( x, y ))  114
 95 88 85 
For comparison see Order Filters on
http://www.ee.siue.edu/~cvip/CVIPtools_demos/mainframe.shtml
Homework 2
Implement in Matlab a linear filter for image smoothing (blurring)

and a nonlinear filters: median, opening, and closing.
Apply them to noise_1.gif, noise_2.gif in
http://www.cis.temple.edu/~latecki/CIS581-02/Images/
and to one example image of your choice.
Compare the results.

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Sliding Window Filters

Longin Jan Latecki

Function w is called a convolution kernel or a filter mask. In

Matlab example program is filterEx1.m

•Local image smoothing can effectively eliminate impulsive noise

•Calculus describes changes of continuous functions using

•The Laplace operator is a very popular operator

•A Laplacian operator with stressed significance of the

The value n should be chosen small enough to provide a good

I. Operators approximating derivatives of the image function using

•approximating first derivatives use several masks, the orientation is

III. Operators which attempt to match an image function to a

The categories II and III will not be covered here;

The primary disadvantage of the Roberts operator is its high

•Used as a simple detector of horizontality and verticality of edges in

and direction as arctan (y / x).

Matlab example program is filterEx1.m

Median is an order filter, it uses order statistics.

110 110 104

110 110 104

Implement in Matlab a linear filter for image smoothing (blurring)

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