Adaptive Multidimensional Filtering

This thesis contains a presentation and an analysis of adaptive filtering strategies for multidimensional data. The size, shape and orientation of the filter are signal controlled and thus adapted locally to each neighbourhood according to a predefined model. The filter is constructed as a linear weighting of fixed oriented bandpass filters having the same shape but different orientations. The adaptive filtering methods have been tested on both real data and synthesized test data in 2D, e.g. still images, 3D, e.g. image sequences or volumes, with good results. In 4D, e.g. volume sequences, the algorithm is given in its mathematical form. The weighting coefficients are given by the inner products of a tensor representing the local structure of the data and the tensors representing the orientation of the filters. The procedure and filter design in estimating the representation tensor are described. In 2D, the tensor contains information about the local energy, the optimal orientation and a certainty of the orientation. In 3D, the information in the tensor is the energy, the normal to the best fitting local plane and the tangent to the best fitting line, and certainties of these orientations. In the case of time sequences, a quantitative comparison of the proposed method and other (optical flow) algorithms is presented. The estimation of control information is made in different scales. There are two main reasons for this. A single filter has a particular limited pass band which may or may not be tuned to the different sized objects to describe. Second, size or scale is a descriptive feature in its own right. All of this requires the integration of measurements from different scales. The increasing interest in wavelet theory supports the idea that a multiresolution approach is necessary. Hence the resulting adaptive filter will adapt also in size and to different orientations in different scales.