Local-Statistics -Based Filtering for Different Noise
Models: A Comparison
V M Harnal∗ , Mahesh V† and Nagashettappa Biradar‡
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, BKIT, Bhalki, India 585328
Email: ∗ vishwaharnal@gmail.com, † maheshsonth@gmail.com, ‡ nmbiradar@gmail.com
Abstract—This paper presents the 6 local statistics filters for 4
different types of noise. The idea behind the modelling of these
filters is the most of the research articles concentrating only
one type of noise especially speckle noise removal filters but
we focussed on speckle, Gaussian, Poisson and salt & pepper
noise for analyses of noise suppression, edge, and structure
preservation evaluated in terms of image quality metrics, visual
quality assessment. The comparative analysis reveals that wiener
filter has better Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Figure of Merit
(FOM) and Structural similarity index (SSIM) for speckle and
Poisson noise images and lsmv filter has better Image quality
index (IQI) and Beta metric (β) image quality metrics for speckle
noise images and no filter has all better image quality metrics
for all types of noise.
Index Terms—Local statistics filters, noise models, edge preser-
vation, image quality metrics.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Image denoising is a fundamental issue in the field of
digital image processing for the future ubiquitous computing
technology that computes and communicates on sensing the
enhanced best quality of images by an efficient filtering
technique. Datasets sensed by image sensors are generally
contaminated by noise, such as Imperfect instruments, while in
data acquisition process and interfering natural phenomena can
all degrade the data of interests. Furthermore, noise can also
introduce transmission errors and compression [1-2]. Denois-
ing techniques are grouped into local statistics, fuzzy, Fourier,
multiscale, nonlinear iterative, total variation, nonlocal mean,
and hybrid-based techniques [11-14]. Usually, most dominant
noises in the images are Gaussian, speckle, Poisson, and salt
& pepper type of noise. Standardized local statistics based
methods namely, local statistical mean and variance (lsmv),
minimum speckle index despeckling filter (lsminsc), wiener,
and other group of Adaptive Synthetic Aperture RADAR
(SAR) filters, such as the Lee filter, Kaun et al. filter, and
Frost et al. filter [4-6].
The remaining part of this paper is organized as follows.
Section II describes the standard noise models and image qual-
ity parameters. Section III discussed various local statistical
based image denoising techniques. In section IV, the perfor-
mance of all filters on images corrupted with different types
of noise are analyzed. Finally based on the comparison of
all quantitative measures best-suited method for the particular
type of noise is concluded in section V.
II. R ELATED W ORK
Denoising of an image is a basic challenge in the field
of digital image processing. To retouch the desired original
quality of an image by filtering out the noise introduced
from improper image sensing equipment and data gathering
mechanism, and also noise can be introduced by transmission.
The noises introduced into the image predicted generally are
speckle, Gaussian, and salt & pepper type of noise. Hence, the
filtering techniques where developed to remove such types of
noise from eroded images. The evenly distributed every pixel
in the noisy image is the sum of the true pixel value and a
random Gaussian distributed noise value. Which has a bell-
shaped probability distribution function which given by,
1 2 2
f (g) = √ e−(g−m) /2σ (1)
2πσ 2
Where g represents the gray level, m is the mean or average
of the function and σ is the standard deviation of the noise.
Poisson or shot noise is a type of electronic noise, which
is a small detectable statistical fluctuation in a measurement
[2]. The errors in data transmission are generally shown by
intensity spikes which are related Salt and pepper type of noise
in eroded images. The spikes type of noise is specified as,

 Pa z = a


f (g) = Pb z = b (2)


0 Otherwise
Here z represents intensity values of pixels in a noisy image.
If b > a; an intensity b will appear as a light dot on the
image and a appears as a dark dot. The most possible type of
noise present in medical imaging is the multiplicative noise
called speckle noise [3], the speckle noise follows a gamma
distribution and is given as,
g (α−1)
f (g) = e−g/a (3)
(α − 1)!aα
Where variance is a2 , α and g is the gray level. To enhance the
quality of the images by modifying the pixel values based on
statistical analysis of local pixel parameters. In the following
section some important local statistical based algorithms are
discussed in detail.
The performance of the denoising filters is analyzed in terms
of image quantitative and qualitative parameters, which are
listed in the Table 1 [1].
 TABLE I
I MAGE QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE PARAMETERS

Metrics Name of metrics Significance

SNR Signal to noise ratio Computing of the level of speckle before and faster processing
PSNR Peak signal to noise ratio Measurement of objective difference between two images
MSE Mean square error Mean difference between original and denoised image
RMSE Root mean square error Square root of squared error average over a window
Err3 Error summation in the form of Minkowski metric, norm of dissimilarity between original and
Normalized error sum
Err4 denoised image, =3 (Err3)and =4(Err4)
Models distortion as the combination of luminance of distortion, loss of correlation, and contrast
IQI Image quality index
distortion
SSIM Structural similarity index Similarity between original and the denoised image
AD Average difference Mean difference divided by the size of the image
SC Structural content Measurement of similarity, for identical images the value should be 1
NCC Normalized cross correlation Measurement of alignment before and after despeckling
MD Maximum difference Maximum difference between original and processed image
LMSE Laplacian mean square error Obtain the edge features of the image
NAE Normalized average error Measure of error prediction accuracy
β Beta metric Objective criteria for measuring edge preservation
ρ Correlation coefficient Measurement of closeness between original and processed image
FoM Figure of merit Measurement of edge displacements between processed and original image

III. L OCAL -S TATISTICS -BASED F ILTERING M ETHODS
Most of the denoising techniques use linear filtering based
on local statistics for different noise models. They are de-
scribed by a weighted average calculation using subregion
statistics to estimate statistical measures over different pixel
windows. The first order local statistics based filters are
characterized by,
fx,y = g x,y + Wx,y (gx,y − g x,y )
where fx,y is the estimated noise-free pixel value, gx,y is the
noisy pixel value in the moving window, g x,y is the local mean
value of an N1 XN2 region surrounding and including pixel
gx,y , Wx,y is a weighting factor, with W [0, 1], and x and y
are the pixel coordinates [1]. The factor Wx,y is a function of
the local statics in a moving window which is given by,
(σ − 2
σn2 )
Wx,y = (5)
σ2
Where σ 2 and σn2 are the variances of the moving window
and the noise of a uniform region in an image, respectively
and σn2 is computed as,
p
X σp2
σn2 =
x=1
gp
Where σp2 and g p are the variance and the mean of the noise in
the selected window, respectively, and p is the index covering
all windows in the image. A local statistical based method
such as local statistical mean and variance (lsmv), which
computes its output with the weighing factor as in Eq. (6) and
the filter wiener, uses a pixel-wise adaptive wiener method
which is implanted as given in Eq. (5), with the weighing
factor Wx,y as given in Eq. (6). Homogeneous mask area type
denoising method called minimum speckle index despeckling
filter (lsminsc) is operating in a [5X5] pixel neighbourhood
by searching for the most homogeneous neighbourhood area
around each pixel using a [3X3] subset window and the
average grey value of this subset with minimum speckle index
C is given by [2,3].
σ2
C= s (7)
gs
where g s and σs2 are the mean and variance of the [3X3]
(4) window, respectively and other group of local-statistics-based
techniques which are adaptive SAR filters, such as the Lee
filter, Kaun filter and Frost filter are based on the assumption
that mean and variance of pixels would be equal to the local
mean and the variance of all pixels within the processing
window [4, 5, 6].
IV. R ESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A standard cameraman image is taken for an input to add
some amount of noise to it for testing. Figure 1 shows, the
visual quality of input image, noisy images after adding some
amount (mean=0, variance=0.01) of noise for different noise
models.
The quantitative performance of some important parame-
ters for four different types of noisy images is analyzed by
(6) following graphs. Figure 2 shows SNR performance of local
statistical filters for different noise models, which indicates
better SNR for lsmv and Wiener filter as compared other
filters for speckle and Poisson type of noisy images. The filter
lsminsc has the worst performance for all type of noisy images
as compared to other filters. Figure 3 shows, IQI performance
of local statistical filters for different noise models which
describes the better IQI for lsmv filter as compared to other
filters for speckle and poor performance for gaussian types
of noisy images. The adaptive SAR filters have the worst IQI
performance for all type of noisy images as compared to other
filters.
 (a) First caption
(b) Second caption (c) Third caption
(d) Fourth caption (e) Fifth caption
Fig. 1. Common figure caption.
Figure 4 shows, Figure of Merit (FOM) performance of local
statistical filters for different noise models which indicates
better FOM for lsmv and Wiener filter as compared other
filters for speckle and Poisson type of noisy images. The
filter lsminsc and Frost have the worst performance for all
type of noisy images as compared to other filters. Figure 5
shows, the β metric performance of local statistical filters
for different noise models which gives a betterβ metric for
the lsmv filter as compared to other filters for speckle-type
of noisy images. The filter lsminsc and Frost have the worst
performance for all type of noisy images as compared to other
filters. Figure 6 shows, SSIM performance of local statistical
filters for different noise models which indicates better SSIM
for wiener filter as compared to other filters for speckle-type
of noisy images. The filter lsminsc and Frost have the worst
performance for all type of noisy images as compared to other
filters. Comparison of Image quality metrics for seven standard
images mean and deviation values are shown in Table 2
Fig. 2. SNR performance of local statistical filters for different noise models
Fig. 3. IQI performance of local statistical filters for different noise models
V. C ONCLUSION
In this paper, six local statistics based techniques are ana-
lyzed by seventeen quantitative parameters for different four
types of standard noise models. Wiener filter has better SNR,
FOM and SSIM for speckle-type of noise images among all
filters. IQI and show better quantitative values for lsmv filter
among all six filters. Finally, this concludes that Wiener and
lsmv filters have better suppression of noise while preserving
the edges for speckle and Gaussian type of noisy images.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by Vision Group on Science &
Technology, Bangalore, Karnataka State, INDIA under Award
no.VGST / K-FIST (L1) (2014-15) / (2015-16) / 373
R EFERENCES
[1] Nagashettappa Biradar, Mohan Lal Dewal and Manoj Kumar Rohit,
Speckle Noise Reduction in B-Mode Echocardiographic Images: A
comparison, IETE Technical Review,page no. 435-453, Vol. 32, Issue
no. 6, (2015)
[2] C. P. Loizou, C. Theofanous, M. Pantziaris, and T. Kasparis, Despeckle
filtering software toolbox for ultrasound imaging of the common carotid
artery, Comput. Methods Programs Biomed., Vol. 114, pp. 109-24,
(2014)
[3] C. P. Loizou, and C. S. Pattichis, Despeckle filtering algorithms and
software for ultrasound imaging, Synth. Lectures Algorithms Softw. Eng,
Vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-166, (2008)
[4] J. S. Lee, Speckle analysis and smoothing of synthetic aperture radar
images, Comput. Graph. Image Process, Vol. 17,no. 1, pp. 24-32, (1981)
 TABLE II
C OMPARISON OF IMAGE QUALITY METRICS FOR SEVEN STANDARD IMAGES ( MEAN & DEVIATION )

Local-statistical-based Image quality parame- Gaussian Speckle Poisson Salt & Pepper
filters ters
SNR 38.881.8 51.164.98 52.775.45 42.732.15
IQI 0.430.14 0.650.09 0.660.08 0.610.04
lsmv β 0.290.08 0.580.13 0.610.10 0.270.07
FoM 0.530.12 0.780.07 0.870.09 0.790.12
SSIM 0.670.10 0.880.14 0.900.14 0.870.17
SNR 41.812.56 49.495.25 51.966.12 40.151.52
IQI 0.450.11 0.610.10 0.630.04 0.590.07
wiener β 0.310.16 0.500.14 0.560.17 0.320.12
FoM 0.570.09 0.780.06 0.850.07 0.790.11
SSIM 0.720.08 0.880.09 0.900.10 0.850.09
SNR 31.221.67 40.060.15 43.310.38 37.741.88
IQI 0.290.12 0.500.08 0.520.07 0.510.07
lsminsc β 0.250.14 0.410.17 0.470.12 0.210.18
FoM 0.460.13 0.640.09 0.760.14 0.750.18
SSIM 0.610.12 0.780.04 0.830.14 0.810.13
SNR 39.865.1 42.875.21 43.435.6 38.079.8
IQI 0.440.16 0.570.09 0.590.07 0.570.04
Lee β 0.120.07 0.160.05 0.170.04 0.110.06
FoM 0.600.12 0.810.15 0.870.16 0.770.19
SSIM 0.730.16 0.860.14 0.880.14 0.820.13
SNR 38.132.25 45.136.38 46.718.06 44.675.2
IQI 0.360.14 0.510.09 0.520.08 0.570.08
Kaun β 0.110.17 0.110.07 0.140.06 0.180.10
FoM 0.550.12 0.760.13 0.870.19 0.810.09
SSIM 0.700.17 0.860.16 0.890.18 0.880.16
SNR 37.983.5 47.348.2 44.195.86 35.757.5
IQI 0.390.09 0.510.07 0.450.05 0.400.08
Frost β 0.220.12 0.350.15 0.180.09 0.170.07
FoM 0.550.17 0.740.12 0.800.16 0.660.13
SSIM 0.690.13 0.840.15 0.770.18 0.680.13

Fig. 4. FoM performance of local statistical filters for different noise models Fig. 5. β performance of local statistical filters for different noise models

[5] D. T. Kuan, A. A. Sawchuk, T. C. Strand, and P. Chavel, Adaptive noise
smoothing filter for images with signal-dependent noise, IEEE Trans.
Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., Vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 165-77, (1985)
[6] V. S. Frost, J. A. Stiles, K. S. Shanmugan, and J. C. Holtzman, A
model for radar images and its application to adaptive digital filtering
of multiplicative noise, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell., Vol. 4,
no. 2, pp. 157-66, (1982)
[7] S. Aja-Fern andez, and C. Alberola-L opez, On the estimation of the
coefficient of variation for anisotropic diffusion speckle filtering, IEEE
Trans. Image Process., Vol. 15, no. 9, pp. 2694-701, (2006)
[8] K. N. Chaudhury, D. Sage, and M. Unser, Fast bilateral filtering using
trigonometric range kernels, IEEE Trans. Image Process., Vol. 20, no.
12, pp. 3376-82, (2011)
[9] J. Zhang, C. Wang, and Y. Cheng, Comparison of despeckle filters for
breast ultrasound images, Circuits Syst. Signal Process., pp. 1-24, (2014)
[10] O. V. Michailovich, and A. Tannenbaum, Despeckling of medical
ultrasound images, IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelectr. Freq. Control, Vol.
53, no. 1, pp. 64-78, (2006)
[11] Nagashettappa Biradar, M.L. Dewal, Manoj kumar Rohit, A novel
hybrid homomorphic fuzzy filter for speckle noise reduction, Biomedical
engineering letters, volume 4, issue 2, pp 176-185,Springer, (2014)
[12] Nagashettappa Biradar, M.L. Dewal, Manoj kumar Rohit, Edge pre-
served speckle Noise reduction using Integrated Fuzzy Filters, Interna-
tional scholarly research notices, volume 2014, 11 pages, (2014)
Fig. 6. SSIM performance of local statistical filters for different noise models

[13] Nagashettappa Biradar, M.L. Dewal, Manoj kumar Rohit ,Comparative

analysis of despeckling for continuous wave Doppler images Biomed
Engg Lett, vol 5: pp. 33-34, Springer, (2015)
[14] Nagashettappa Biradar, M.L. Dewal, Manoj kumar Rohit, Speckle noise
reduction in Echocardiographic images of aortic valve and cardiac
chambers, Optik- International Journal for Light and Electron optics,
Volume 126, issue 2, pages 153-163, Elsevier, (2015)