EDGE-BASED ADAPTIVE SMOOTHING

An image diffusion method based on the adaptive smoothing approach pro posed by Saint-Marc et al. (1991) is presented. We first investigate t he behavior of the adaptive smoothing approach for computing simplific ations of an input image, a basic problem in image analysis. Whereas t he original adaptive smoothing algorithm achieves satisfactory results for 1-D signals, the unequal strength of the boundaries of images (2- D signals) poses a difficult problem. We propose the addition of an ed ge-strengthening step that addresses that problem. Results show signif icant improvements. However, this added step requires us to (1) extrac t a set of edge pixels and (2) obtain certain edge information (in par ticular, edge-side location). These tasks are interrelated, and their computation is described. In addition, the limitations of the adaptive smoothing approach are studied in depth. (C) 1997 Society of Photo-Op tical Instrumentation Engineers.