Perceptual Color Image Smoothing via a New Region-Based PDE Scheme

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new color image regularization method using a rotating smoothing filter.
This approach combines a method of pixel classification, which roughly  determines if a pixel belongs to a homogenous region or an edge with an anisotropic perceptual edge detector capable of computing two precise diffusion directions.
These directions are then used by an anisotropic diffusion scheme.
Anisotropic diffusion is accurately controlled near edges and corners, while isotropic diffusion is applied to smooth regions either homogeneous or corrupted by noise.
A comparison of our approach with other regularization methods applied on real images demonstrate that our model is able to efficiently restore images and control the diffusion, preserving well edges and corners.