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Mongi A Abidi

Publications and source records attributed to Mongi A Abidi.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Gray-level grouping (GLG): an automatic method for optimized image contrast enhancement--Part II: the variations.

This is Part II of the paper, "Gray-Level Grouping (GLG): an Automatic Method for Optimized Image Contrast Enhancement". Part I of this paper introduced a new automatic contrast enhancement technique: gray-level grouping (GLG). GLG is a general and powerful technique, which can be conveniently applied to a broad variety of low-contrast images and outperforms conventional contrast enhancement techniques. However, the basic GLG method still has limitations and cannot enhance certain classes of low-contrast images well, e.g., images with a noisy background. The basic GLG also cannot fulfill certain special application purposes, e.g., enhancing only part of an image which corresponds to a certain segment of the image histogram. In order to break through these limitations, this paper introduces an extension of the basic GLG algorithm, selective gray-level grouping (SGLG), which groups the histogram components in different segments of the grayscale using different criteria and, hence, is able to enhance different parts of the histogram to various extents. This paper also introduces two new preprocessing methods to eliminate background noise in noisy low-contrast images so that such images can be properly enhanced by the (S)GLG technique. The extension of (S)GLG to color images is also discussed in this paper. SGLG and its variations extend the capability of the basic GLG to a larger variety of low-contrast images, and can fulfill special application requirements. SGLG and its variations not only produce results superior to conventional contrast enhancement techniques, but are also fully automatic under most circumstances, and are applicable to a broad variety of images.

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Gray-level grouping (GLG): an automatic method for optimized image contrast enhancement--Part I: the basic method.

Contrast enhancement has an important role in image processing applications. Conventional contrast enhancement techniques either often fail to produce satisfactory results for a broad variety of low-contrast images, or cannot be automatically applied to different images, because their parameters must be specified manually to produce a satisfactory result for a given image. This paper describes a new automatic method for contrast enhancement. The basic procedure is to first group the histogram components of a low-contrast image into a proper number of bins according to a selected criterion, then redistribute these bins uniformly over the grayscale, and finally ungroup the previously grouped gray-levels. Accordingly, this new technique is named gray-level grouping (GLG). GLG not only produces results superior to conventional contrast enhancement techniques, but is also fully automatic in most circumstances, and is applicable to a broad variety of images. An extension of GLG, selective GLG (SGLG), and its variations will be discussed in Part II of this paper. SGLG selectively groups and ungroups histogram components to achieve specific application purposes, such as eliminating background noise, enhancing a specific segment of the histogram, and so on. The extension of GLG to color images will also be discussed in Part II.

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Boolean operations with implicit and parametric representation of primitives using R-functions.

We present a new and efficient algorithm to accurately polygonize an implicit surface generated by multiple Boolean operations with globally deformed primitives. Our algorithm is special in the sense that it can be applied to objects with both an implicit and a parametric representation, such as superquadrics, supershapes, and Dupin cyclides. The input is a Constructive Solid Geometry tree (CSG tree) that contains the Boolean operations, the parameters of the primitives, and the global deformations. At each node of the CSG tree, the implicit formulations of the subtrees are used to quickly determine the parts to be transmitted to the parent node, while the primitives' parametric definition are used to refine an intermediary mesh around the intersection curves. The output is both an implicit equation and a mesh representing its solution. For the resulting object, an implicit equation with guaranteed differential properties is obtained by simple combinations of the primitives' implicit equations using R-functions. Depending on the chosen R-function, this equation is continuous and can be differentiable everywhere. The primitives' parametric representations are used to directly polygonize the resulting surface by generating vertices that belong exactly to the zero-set of the resulting implicit equation. The proposed approach has many potential applications, ranging from mechanical engineering to shape recognition and data compression. Examples of complex objects are presented and commented on to show the potential of our approach for shape modeling.

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