Biomedical subjects

Minh N Do

Publications and source records attributed to Minh N Do.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Special paraunitary matrices, Cayley transform, and multidimensional orthogonal filter banks.

We characterize and design multidimensional (MD) orthogonal filter banks using special paraunitary matrices and the Cayley transform. Orthogonal filter banks are represented by paraunitary matrices in the polyphase domain. We define special paraunitary matrices as paraunitary matrices with unit determinant. We show that every paraunitary matrix can be characterized by a special paraunitary matrix and a phase factor. Therefore, the design of paraunitary matrices (and thus of orthogonal filter banks) becomes the design of special paraunitary matrices, which requires a smaller set of nonlinear equations. Moreover, we provide a complete characterization of special paraunitary matrices in the Cayley domain, which converts nonlinear constraints into linear constraints. Our method greatly simplifies the design of MD orthogonal filter banks and leads to complete characterizations of such filter banks.

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PubMed2006

Directional multiscale modeling of images using the contourlet transform.

The contourlet transform is a new two-dimensional extension of the wavelet transform using multiscale and directional filter banks. The contourlet expansion is composed of basis images oriented at various directions in multiple scales, with flexible aspect ratios. Given this rich set of basis images, the contourlet transform effectively captures smooth contours that are the dominant feature in natural images. We begin with a detailed study on the statistics of the contourlet coefficients of natural images: using histograms to estimate the marginal and joint distributions and mutual information to measure the dependencies between coefficients. This study reveals the highly non-Gaussian marginal statistics and strong interlocation, interscale, and interdirection dependencies of contourlet coefficients. We also find that conditioned on the magnitudes of their generalized neighborhood coefficients, contourlet coefficients can be approximately modeled as Gaussian random variables. Based on these findings, we model contourlet coefficients using a hidden Markov tree (HMT) model with Gaussian mixtures that can capture all interscale, interdirection, and interlocation dependencies. We present experimental results using this model in image denoising and texture retrieval applications. In denoising, the contourlet HMT outperforms other wavelet methods in terms of visual quality, especially around edges. In texture retrieval, it shows improvements in performance for various oriented textures.

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PubMed2006

Fast search for best representations in multitree dictionaries.

We address the best basis problem--or, more generally, the best representation problem: Given a signal, a dictionary of representations, and an additive cost function, the aim is to select the representation from the dictionary which minimizes the cost for the given signal. We develop a new framework of multitree dictionaries, which includes some previously proposed dictionaries as special cases. We show how to efficiently find the best representation in a multitree dictionary using a recursive tree-pruning algorithm. We illustrate our framework through several examples, including a novel block image coder, which significantly outperforms both the standard JPEG and quadtree-based methods and is comparable to embedded coders such as JPEG2000 and SPIHT.

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PubMed2006

On the number of rectangular tilings.

Adaptive multiscale representations via quadtree splitting and two-dimensional (2-D) wavelet packets, which amount to space and frequency decompositions, respectively, are powerful concepts that have been widely used in applications. These schemes are direct extensions of their one-dimensional counterparts, in particular, by coupling of the two dimensions and restricting to only one possible further partition of each block into four subblocks. In this paper, we consider more flexible schemes that exploit more variations of multidimensional data structure. In the meantime, we restrict to tree-based decompositions that are amenable to fast algorithms and have low indexing cost. Examples of these decomposition schemes are anisotropic wavelet packets, dyadic rectangular tilings, separate dimension decompositions, and general rectangular tilings. We compute the numbers of possible decompositions for each of these schemes. We also give bounds for some of these numbers. These results show that the new rectangular tiling schemes lead to much larger sets of 2-D space and frequency decompositions than the commonly-used quadtree-based schemes, therefore bearing the potential to obtain better representation for a given image.

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PubMed2006

Multidimensional multichannel FIR deconvolution using Gröbner bases.

We present a new method for general multidimensional multichannel deconvolution with finite impulse response (FIR) convolution and deconvolution filters using Gröbner bases. Previous work formulates the problem of multichannel FIR deconvolution as the construction of a left inverse of the convolution matrix, which is solved by numerical linear algebra. However, this approach requires the prior information of the support of deconvolution filters. Using algebraic geometry and Gröbner bases, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of exact deconvolution FIR filters and propose simple algorithms to find these deconvolution filters. The main contribution of our work is to extend the previous Gröbner basis results on multidimensional multichannel deconvolution for polynomial or causal filters to general FIR filters. The proposed algorithms obtain a set of FIR deconvolution filters with a small number of nonzero coefficients (a desirable feature in the impulsive noise environment) and do not require the prior information of the support. Moreover, we provide a complete characterization of all exact deconvolution FIR filters, from which good FIR deconvolution filters under the additive white noise environment are found. Simulation results show that our approaches achieve good results under different noise settings.

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PubMed2006

The nonsubsampled contourlet transform: theory, design, and applications.

In this paper, we develop the nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) and study its applications. The construction proposed in this paper is based on a nonsubsampled pyramid structure and nonsubsampled directional filter banks. The result is a flexible multiscale, multidirection, and shift-invariant image decomposition that can be efficiently implemented via the à trous algorithm. At the core of the proposed scheme is the nonseparable two-channel nonsubsampled filter bank (NSFB). We exploit the less stringent design condition of the NSFB to design filters that lead to a NSCT with better frequency selectivity and regularity when compared to the contourlet transform. We propose a design framework based on the mapping approach, that allows for a fast implementation based on a lifting or ladder structure, and only uses one-dimensional filtering in some cases. In addition, our design ensures that the corresponding frame elements are regular, symmetric, and the frame is close to a tight one. We assess the performance of the NSCT in image denoising and enhancement applications. In both applications the NSCT compares favorably to other existing methods in the literature.

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PubMed2005

Rate-distortion optimized tree-structured compression algorithms for piecewise polynomial images.

This paper presents novel coding algorithms based on tree-structured segmentation, which achieve the correct asymptotic rate-distortion (R-D) behavior for a simple class of signals, known as piecewise polynomials, by using an R-D based prune and join scheme. For the one-dimensional case, our scheme is based on binary-tree segmentation of the signal. This scheme approximates the signal segments using polynomial models and utilizes an R-D optimal bit allocation strategy among the different signal segments. The scheme further encodes similar neighbors jointly to achieve the correct exponentially decaying R-D behavior (D(R) - c(o)2(-c1R)), thus improving over classic wavelet schemes. We also prove that the computational complexity of the scheme is of O(N log N). We then show the extension of this scheme to the two-dimensional case using a quadtree. This quadtree-coding scheme also achieves an exponentially decaying R-D behavior, for the polygonal image model composed of a white polygon-shaped object against a uniform black background, with low computational cost of O(N log N). Again, the key is an R-D optimized prune and join strategy. Finally, we conclude with numerical results, which show that the proposed quadtree-coding scheme outperforms JPEG2000 by about 1 dB for real images, like cameraman, at low rates of around 0.15 bpp.

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PubMed2005

Multidimensional orthogonal filter bank characterization and design using the Cayley transform.

We present a complete characterization and design of orthogonal infinite impulse response (IIR) and finite impulse response (FIR) filter banks in any dimension using the Cayley transform (CT). Traditional design methods for one-dimensional orthogonal filter banks cannot be extended to higher dimensions directly due to the lack of a multidimensional (MD) spectral factorization theorem. In the polyphase domain, orthogonal filter banks are equivalent to paraunitary matrices and lead to solving a set of nonlinear equations. The CT establishes a one-to-one mapping between paraunitary matrices and para-skew-Hermitian matrices. In contrast to the paraunitary condition, the para-skew-Hermitian condition amounts to linear constraints on the matrix entries which are much easier to solve. Based on this characterization, we propose efficient methods to design MD orthogonal filter banks and present new design results for both IIR and FIR cases.

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PubMed2005

The contourlet transform: an efficient directional multiresolution image representation.

The limitations of commonly used separable extensions of one-dimensional transforms, such as the Fourier and wavelet transforms, in capturing the geometry of image edges are well known. In this paper, we pursue a "true" two-dimensional transform that can capture the intrinsic geometrical structure that is key in visual information. The main challenge in exploring geometry in images comes from the discrete nature of the data. Thus, unlike other approaches, such as curvelets, that first develop a transform in the continuous domain and then discretize for sampled data, our approach starts with a discrete-domain construction and then studies its convergence to an expansion in the continuous domain. Specifically, we construct a discrete-domain multiresolution and multidirection expansion using nonseparable filter banks, in much the same way that wavelets were derived from filter banks. This construction results in a flexible multiresolution, local, and directional image expansion using contour segments, and, thus, it is named the contourlet transform. The discrete contourlet transform has a fast iterated filter bank algorithm that requires an order N operations for N-pixel images. Furthermore, we establish a precise link between the developed filter bank and the associated continuous-domain contourlet expansion via a directional multiresolution analysis framework. We show that with parabolic scaling and sufficient directional vanishing moments, contourlets achieve the optimal approximation rate for piecewise smooth functions with discontinuities along twice continuously differentiable curves. Finally, we show some numerical experiments demonstrating the potential of contourlets in several image processing applications. Index Terms-Contourlets, contours, filter banks, geometric image processing, multidirection, multiresolution, sparse representation, wavelets.

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