Share Email Print
cover

Proceedings Paper

Convergence properties of multidimensional stack filters
Author(s): Peter D. Wendt
Format Member Price Non-Member Price
PDF $17.00 $21.00

Paper Abstract

Stack filters are generalizations of median filters; a stack filter is a composition of local minimum and maximum operators. A major question in the study of these filters is whether a particular stack filter will make any signal of finite extent converge to an invariant signal--i.e. whether it will "filter out all the noise." Here, we consider the class of stack filters that reduce to symmetric threshold functions for binary inputs. We show that, if we surround an n-dimensional signal with an arbitrary fixed boundary, then any n-dimensional stack filter from the class will make the signal converge to an invariant signal, or a cycle of period 2, in a finite number of iterations. If we make the stack filter recursive, it will always filter the signal to an invariant signal, no matter how the filter moves over the signal. Our results follow from similar theorems on the convergence of neural networks. Many known useful filters are governed by our results. They include all 1-dimensional ranked-order filters with symmetric windows, and all 2-dimensional ranked-order filters with windows that are invariant under a 180° rotation.

Paper Details

Date Published: 1 July 1990
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 1247, Nonlinear Image Processing, (1 July 1990); doi: 10.1117/12.19610
Show Author Affiliations
Peter D. Wendt, IBM/Thomas J. Watson Research Ctr. (United States)


Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1247:
Nonlinear Image Processing
Edward J. Delp, Editor(s)

© SPIE. Terms of Use
Back to Top
PREMIUM CONTENT
Sign in to read the full article
Create a free SPIE account to get access to
premium articles and original research
Forgot your username?
close_icon_gray