SPACE AND FREQUENCY VARIANT IMAGE-ENHANCEMENT BASED ON A GABOR REPRESENTATION

In this paper we present an image enhancement method to remove degrada tions due to large amounts of space and frequency variant fractal nois e. Images degraded by fog are examples of such a situation. First, a p yramidal image representation has been applied, consisting of 4 X 4 ga borian channels in frequency and orientation plus a zero-frequency res idual. Previously, a set of channels corresponding to a generic undegr aded image prototype was computed. By using that prototype along with a generic mathematical model of the noise (i.e., brownian fractal) it is possible to perform a blind image enhancement. The enhancement proc ess is recursively applied at the different pyramid levels. The method has been tested by merging 90% of a fractal cloud cover with 10% of a n aerial image, illustrating how many details practically invisible in the foggy image become clearly visible.