1
Higher Order Diffusion Filters for Speckle
Noise Reduction
1
CH.Kranthi Rekha, M.Tech, MISTE, MIETE, Asst.Professor.VCEW
2
V.Vijaya, M.Tech, MISTE, MIETE, Asst.Professor. VCEW
3
B.Sreedevi, M.Tech., MISTE, MIETE, Asst.Professor. VCEW
Abstract— Visual information transmitted in the form of digital
images is becoming a major method of communication in the modern
age, but the image obtained after transmission is often corrupted with
noise. The received image needs processing before it can be used in
applications. Image denoising involves the manipulation of the image
data to produce a visually high quality image. This thesis reviews the
existing denoising algorithms, such as filtering approach, wavelet
based approach, and multifractal approach, and performs their
comparative study. Different noise models including additive and
multiplicative types are used. They include Gaussian noise, salt and
pepper noise, speckle noise and Brownian noise. Selection of the
denoising algorithm is application dependent. Hence, it is necessary to
have knowledge about the noise present in the image so as to select
the appropriate denoising algorithm. The filtering approach has been
proved to be the best when the image is corrupted with salt and
pepper noise. The Partial differential equation approach finds
applications in denoising images corrupted with Gaussian noise. In
the case where the noise characteristics are complex, the multi fractal
approach can be used. A quantitative measure of comparison is
provided by the signal to noise ratio of the image.
Aim of the project is to reduce the speckle noise from the
medical images by retaining most of the information, using fourth
order partial differential equations and comparing the results with
second order partial differential equation method, that is best
suitable for a medical practitioner or a doctor to diagnose well by
comparing this denoised image with the obtained.
Index Terms— Adaptive filters, ENL number, Peak Signal to
Noise Ratio, Partial Differential Equation, Speckle Noise.
I. INTRODUCTION
A very large portion of digital image processing is devoted
to image restoration. Image denoising is often used in the
field of photography or publishing where an image was
somehow degraded but needs to be improved before it can
be printed. For this type of application we need to know
something about the degradation process in order to
CH.Kranthi Rekha is with Vaagdevi College of Engineering, Warangal.
Cell:9959421564 ,fax:0870-2865185
Email :madakranthirekha@yahoo.com
V.Vijaya is working in Vaagdevi College of engineering, Warangal. Cell:
9849997298 email: vsrtej@yahoo.co.in.
B.Sreedevi is with vaagdevi college of engineering, Warangal, Email-
vaagvijs_15@yahoo.co.in.
develop a model for it. When we have a model for the
degradation process, the inverse process can be applied to
the image to restore it back to the original form. Image
denoising finds applications in fields such as astronomy
where the resolution limitations are severe, in medical
imaging where the physical requirements for the high
quality imaging are needed for analyzing images of unique
events, and in forensic science where potentially useful
photographic evidence is sometimes of extremely bad
quality. The two main limitations in image accuracy are
categorized as blur and noise. Blur is intrinsic to image
acquisition systems, as digital images have a finite number
of samples and must respect the Shannon-Nyquist
sampling conditions. The second main image perturbation
is noise [7].
Speckle noise is a multiplicative noise. This type of
noise occurs in almost all coherent imaging systems such
as laser, acoustics and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar)
imagery. The source of this noise is attributed to random
interference between the coherent returns. Fully developed
speckle noise has the characteristic of multiplicative noise.
Speckle noise follows a gamma distribution.
The paper is organized as follows: Part-II explains about
the methods used to denoise the images. Part-III covers the
detail formulation of the Partial differential equation
method. The IV-Part of the paper deals about adaptive
filtering. The Part-V gives the results and comparison of
the various methods.
II. METHODS USED:
Removing speckle noise from data is often the first step
in data analysis. In medical image processing, image
denoising has become a very essential exercise all through
the diagnose. Medical images corrupted by noise in its
transmission and acquisition.
Hence many methods have been proposed to remove
this noise without loss of information in the image.
In this project second order and fourth order partial
differential equations are used followed by adaptive filters.
An adaptive filter adapts to the changing input
environments denoising is more effective compared to the
regular fixed filters[11].
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To perform so the following methods are implemented image, a curve or a surface with a PDE and obtain expected
v Fourth order partial differential equations results as a solution to this equation. The main advantage of
v Second order partial differential equations PDEs is that it takes the image analysis to a continuous
v Speckle Reduction Anisotropic Diffusion filter domain simplifying the formalism of the model, which
v Frost filter becomes independent from the grid used in the discrete
v Lee filter problem. Among the PDEs due to its structural preserving
v Kaun filter ability, non linear PDEs are commonly used for image
All these methods are compared with respect to denoising.
different parameters like peak signal to noise ratio, Second order PDE based method:
structural similarity index matrix, ENLetc. This was introduced by Perona-malik. The Perona-malik
equation is given by
III. PARTIAL DIFFERRENTIAL EQUATION ∂f
METHODS FOR SPECKLE NOISE REMOVAL. = div [c(∇f )∇f , f ( x, y )]t =0 = f 0 ( x, y )
∂t
Ultrasonic imaging is a widely used medical imaging (1)
procedure because it is economical, comparatively safe, Where, f = is the image
transferable, and adaptable. Ultrasonic imaging results in
∇ f = Gradient of the image f,
poor quality of images which shows that the image is
Div = is the divergence operator
affected by speckle noise the speckle is unattractive since
C= is the diffusion coefficient.
it disgrace image quality and it affects the tasks of
The diffusion coefficient c is a non-decreasing function
individual interpretation and diagnosis.
and diffuses more on plateaus (slowly varying peaks) and
In medical literature, speckle noise is referred as
less on edges (sharp details) and thus edges are preserved[3].
“texture” and may possibly contain useful diagnostic
Perona-malik suggested two diffusion coefficients. They
information. The desired grade of speckle smoothing
are
preferably depends on the specialist’s knowledge and on
the application. 1   s 2 
c( s ) = And c( s ) = exp −    (2)
For automatic segmentation, sustaining the sharpness of
s
2  k 
the boundaries between different image regions is usually 1+    
preferred while smooth out the speckled texture. For visual  
k
interpretation, smoothing the texture is less desirable. As s increased c(s) will decrease and tends to zero for
The speckle filtering is a central preprocessing step for image edges and thus prevents diffusion at the edges.
feature extraction, analysis and recognition from medical
imagery measurements. IV. ADAPTIVE FILTERS IN SPECKLE NOISE REMOVAL.
The method used should enhance the signal quality by
removing the speckle noise. In image processing for the Statistic Lee filter
noise removal process some parameters like gradient,
Laplacian can be used. Gradient determines the presence The Lee filter is based on a linear speckle noise model and
of the edge and Laplacian gives the location or point at a minimum mean square error (MMSE) design approach.
which the edge starts and ends. Gradient is first order The Lee filter identifies regions with low and constant
partial differential equation and Laplacian is a second variance as areas for noise reduction.
order partial differential equation. These methods mostly In a region with no signal activity, the filter outputs the
work on the principle of neighbors of a pixel. Masks or local mean. When signal activity is detected, the filter passes
filters are used to perform these operations. The higher the original signal through unchanged.
order partial differential equations are derived from these This is achieved by implementing a filter of the form
parameters. specified as
Speckle noise is a high frequency component of the Rˆ = wI t (1 − w)I (3)
image and hence the removal of this component involves
Where
low pass filtering. This is nothing but removing edges or
I t = is the central pixel in the t th window and
sharp details of the image. Laplacian and its higher order
W = is the weighting function ranging between 0 for flat
can be used to detect such edges and filtering involves
regions to 1 for regions with high signal activity.
removing these edges i.e., speckle.
The weighting function is calculated according to equation.
PDE based methods assume the intensity of illumination 2
on edges varies like geometric heat flow in which heat cu
transforms from a warm environment to a cooler one until
w = 1− 2
(4)
ci
the temperature of the two environments reaches a
balanced point. σu σi
PDE based methods are used to detect and remove noise
Where, cu = and ci = are the coefficient of
u I
from sharp edges, curved structures, linear images, etc. variation of the noise u and the image I.
Thus the basic idea of PDE based method is to deform an
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In area’s of high variance, edges are assumed and little to When the variation coefficient ci2 is small, the filter
no noise smoothing is done. In other words, the Lee filters behaves like a low pass filter smoothing out the speckles,
smoothes away noise in flat regions, but leaves fine details when ci2 is large it has a tendency to preserve the original
unchanged. observed image.

Draw back Speckle Reduction Anisotropic Diffusion Filter :

Therefore its major drawback is that it leaves noise in the This filter removes speckle but produces artifacts (local
vicinity of edges and lines. constant areas and artificial structures)
The mean and standard deviation are calculated
from local regions in the image defined by smaller windows V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND COMPARISON
generally with dimensions 3x3, 5x5, 7x7. The project is carried out on ultrasound Images and signal to
noise ratio of these images are compared using the mentioned
Within each window, the local mean and variance methods.
are estimated according to equation. PSNR= 20 log (255/MSE) (9)
N
1
∑t
It can be observed that fourth order partial differential
I = i , (5)
equation method and SRAD method h as comparable PSNR
N i =1
at higher variances of the image. Speckle noise is more
1 N
∑ efficiently removed using SRAD filter.
2
σi = (t i − t )2 (6)
The PSNR comparison for ultrasonic images is shown as:
N − 1 i =1
Where,
N= is the number of pixel in the local window,
TABLE I
I= is the mean pixel intensity.
σ i2 = is the variance of the pixel intensity. COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT METHODS OF REDUCING SPECKLE NOISE IN
TERMS OF SIGNAL TO NOISE RATIO IN DB FOR DIFFERENT VARIANCES

Kaun Filter:

In kaun filter, the multiplicative noise model is first

transformed into a signal dependant additive noise model.
Then the MMSE criterion is then applied to this model.
The resulting filter has the same form as the Lee filter but
with a different weighting function given as
2
cu
1− 2
ci
w= 2
` (7)
1 + cu
The kaun filter made no approximation to the
original model. Hence it is superior to Lee filter. The Kaun
filter can be derived directly by applying the MMSE criterion
to the multiplicative model.

Frost Filter:

The forst filter differs from the Lee and kaun filters with
respect to the scene reflectivity R̂ is estimated by
convolving the observed image with the impulse response of
the coherent imaging system.
The system’s impulse response is calculated by
minimizing the MSE between the observed image and the
scene reflectivity model, assumed to be an autoregressive
process.
The resulting filter is given as
Iˆt = exp − kci t
2
( ) (8)
Where, k is a constant, controlling the damping rate
of the impulse response function at the pixel to the filtered.

The images are shown as:
Denoising of an ultrasonic image:
original image image with speckle noise
OUTPUT USING SRAD FILTER OUTPUT USING FROST FILTER
Fig.1 performance comparison fourth order PDE and various
adaptive filters against ultrasound images. (a). Original
image (b) Speckle .noisy image (c). Second order output with
PSNR (29.23db) (d) 4Th order PDE output with PSNR (7.087
db) (e) SRAD filter output with PSNR (57.094) (f) Frost
filter output with PSNR (22.9) (g) Lee filter output with
PSNR (27.9) (h) Kaun filter output with PSNR (29.1)
Denoising of an curved image:
original image image with speckle noise
OUTPUT USING SRAD FILTER OUTPUT USING FROST FILTER
Fig.2 performance comparison fourth order PDE and various
adaptive filters against ultrasound images. (a). Original
image (b).Speckle noisy image (c). Second order output with
PSNR (24.23db) (d) 4Th order PDE output with PSNR (10
db) (e) SRAD filter output with PSNR (47) (f) Frost filter
output with PSNR (18 db) (g) Lee filter output with PSNR
(20.5 db) (h) Kaun filter output with PSNR (19.9 db)
VI CONCLUSION
The project aims to remove speckle noise from various
real time images. The methods used are higher order partial
OUTPUT USING 2ND ORDER PDE OUTPUT USING FRTHORDER PDE
output using kaun filter
OUTPUT USING 2ND ORDER PDE OUTPUT USING FRTHORDER PDE
output using kaun filter
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differential equations followed by many adaptive filters such
as SRAD filter, Kaun filter, Lee filter and Frost filter. The
peak signal to noise ratio is computed for all these methods
and compared.
The speckle reduction forms the pre-processing step
for segmentation, that is, after the adaptive filtering the
image can be used for segmentation.
VII .ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to management Vaagdevi College
of Engineering, Warangal for the facilities provided to
complete the project in time.
output using lee filter
REFERENCES
1. S.Sudha, G.R.Suresh, R.Sukanesh, “Speckle noise
reduction in ultrasound images by wavelet thresholding
based on weighted variance. International Journal of
Computer Theory and Engineering vol.1, No.1, April 2009.
2. Ehsan Nadernejad, Hamidreza loohi, Hamid Hassanpour,
PDES based method for Image Enhancement, applied
Mathematical Sciences, vol.2 2008, no.20, 981-993.
3. Jeny Rajan, M.R.Iraimal. A comparative analysis of
fourth-order and complex PDEs for Noise reduction
(removal), International journal of sysyrmics cybernetics and
informatics, pp: 63-68, April 2006.
4. Sarita Dangeti, DENOISING TECHNIQUES - A
COMPARISON, thesis,may 2003
5. Langis Gagnon, “Wavelet Filtering of Speckle Noise-
Some Numerical Results,” Proceedings of the Conference
Vision Interface 1999, Trois- Riveres.
6. Jeny Rajan,”Image denoising using Lee filter and Kaun
filter.” 2006.
7. Antoni Buades, Bartomeu Coll, Jean Michel Morel,
“lecture notes on Image denoising methods”.
8. Ehsan Nadernejad, Hamidreza koohi, Hamid hassanpour,
“PDEs based method for Image Enhancement, Applied
mathematics, Vol.2, 2008, no.20, 981-993”.
9. D.Hillery, “Iterative wiener filters for Images
output using lee filter
restoration.IEEE Transaction on SP,39 pp.1892-1991.
10. L.Gagnon &A.Jouan, “speckle filtering of SAR images a
comparative study between complex wavelet based and
standard filters “, proc.SPIE, vol.319, pp.80-91, 1997
11. Sinan Gezici, Ismail Yilmaz, Omer N Gerek A. Enis
Centin, “Image Denoising Using Adaptive Sub band
Decomposition”.
Bibliographical notes:
CH.Kranthi Rekha had received her B.E Degree in
Electronics and Communication Engineering from Madurai
Kamaraj University in 2000 and Pursuing M.Tech from
JNTUH, Hyderabad. Presently she is working as Aassistant
Professor in Vaagdevi College of Engineering, Warangal,
A.P. She has 10 years of teaching experience. She is the
Author of two Books (Digital communications and Digital
Image processing). Organized student level technical
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symposium technocraft-’09.Attended 10 workshops/refresher

courses/short term courses at various places. As a resource
person to talk on Image processing. Member of Project
Review Committee (UG/PG); CRC for (UG/PG). Her area of
interest are Neural networks, Image processing, Signal
processing, VLSI, Communications. She is life member of
ISTE, IETE.

V.Vijaya obtained her B.Tech Degree in Electronics &

Communication Engg., from (JNTU) Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University College of Engg., Ananthapur, and
M.Tech. Degree in Instrumentation and Control Systems,
from JNTUK college of Engg Kakinada. V.Vijaya worked at
APEL Radio Communication Systems, Hyderabad and
presently, she is working as Asst Professor in the ECE Dept
of Vaagdevi College of Engineering at Warangal. She has 10
years of Teaching Experience and 2 years of Industrial
Experience. Attended 14 workshops/refresher courses/short
term courses at various places. Member of Project Review
Committee (UG/PG); CRC for (UG/PG). Her area of interest
are Image processing, Signal processing, VLSI, Mobile
Communications, Wireless Communications. She is life
member of ISTE, IETE.
B.Sreedevi obtained her AMIE Degree in Electronics &
Communication Engg., from Institution of Engineers,
Calcutta, and M.Tech. Degree in Digital System Computer
Electronics, from JNTUA college of Engg Ananthapur. She
is working as Asst Professor in the ECE Dept of Vaagdevi
College of Engineering at Warangal. She has 10 years of
Teaching Experience. Attended 12 workshops/refresher
courses/short term courses at various places. Member of
Project Review Committee (UG/PG); CRC for (UG/PG). Her
area of interest are Image processing, Signal processing,
VLSI, Communications. She is life member of ISTE, IETE.