Vector directional filters-a new class of multichannel image processing filters

Vector directional filters (VDF) for multichannel image processing are introduced and studied. These filters separate the processing of vector-valued signals into directional processing and magnitude processing. This provides a link between single-channel image processing where only magnitude processing is essentially performed, and multichannel image processing where both the direction and the magnitude of the image vectors play an important role in the resulting (processed) image. VDF find applications in satellite image data processing, color image processing, and multispectral biomedical image processing. Results are presented here for the case of color images, as an important example of multichannel image processing. It is shown that VDF can achieve very good filtering results for various noise source models.