Remote sensing imaging is a tool for collecting information about the Earth's surface such as soil, vegetation and water. Recent progress in electronics, telecommunications and sensor developments have resulted in the launch of many satellites in the past three decades. Different sensors in remote sensing systems capture a variety of images with differing characteristics. Image fusion has been used to integrate two or more images and provides output images with better accuracy. This research provides a new technique for image fusion using the contourlet transform in combination with the YCbCr color space. The output images preserve both the spectral and spatial characteristics of the input images and they are better for human and machine interpretation. This technique provides solutions to some problems (\emph{i.e.}, ghosting effect, and blocking artifacts) which the traditional image fusion techniques fail to address. The proposed technique is tested on both classical and remote sensing images. Quality metrics are used to evaluate the results of the proposed technique. The results proved significant enhancement of the quality of the output images. More fine details are successfully captured and the original chromaticity information is preserved as well. The proposed technique eliminates the blocking artifacts in the output images. Also, a new metric is presented to measure the blocking artifacts in the fused image. The results showed that increasing the number of contourlet decomposition levels does not degrade the quality of the output image. Therefore, the output images do not lose their chromaticity information when the number of contourlet decomposition levels increases. The proposed technique is tested on a variety of the remote sensing images that have large resolution ratios (\emph{i.e.}, 1:8, 1:16 and 1:32). The proposed technique is robust and suitable for many image applications. The detection of the concealed objects is an example of such applications, where the proposed technique is tested to measure its capability to fuse images with different features. The results of the Contourlet-YCbCr fusion technique are compared with the conventional fusion methods, where the proposed technique is more capable in detecting the hidden objects and preserving the original color components of the input image.

The contourlet transform is an emerging multiscale multidirection image processing technique. It effectively represents smooth curvature details typical of natural images, overcoming a major drawback of the 2-D wavelet transform. To further exploit its potential, in this research, a statistical model, the contourlet contextual hidden Markov model (C-CHMM), has been developed to characterize contourlet images. A systematic mutual information based context construction procedure has been developed to form an appropriate context for the model. With this contourlet image model, a multiscale segmentation method has also been established for the application to texture images. The segmentation method combines a model comparison approach with a multiscale fusion and a multi-neighbor combination process. It also features a neighborhood selection scheme based on a smoothed context map, for both the model estimation and the neighbor combination. The effectiveness of the image model has been verified through a series of denoising and segmentation experiments. As demonstrated with the denoising performance, this new model for contourlet images is more promising than the state of the art, the contourlet hidden Markov tree (C-HMT) model. The other model being compared with in this work is the wavelet contextual hidden Markov model (W-CHMM). Through the denoising experiments, the presented C-CHMM shows better robustness against noise than the W-CHMM. Moreover, the new model demonstrates its superiority to the wavelet model in the segmentation performance. Through the segmentation experiments, the value of the systematic context construction procedure has been proven. The C-CHMM based segmentation method has also been validated. In comparison with the state of the art methods for the same type, the presented technique shows improved accuracy in segmenting texture patterns of diversified nature. This success in segmentation has further manifested the potential of the newly developed contourlet image model.

In this paper we present examples of ground roll attenuation for synthetic and real data gathers by using Contourlet and Curvelet transforms. These non-separable wavelet transforms are locoalized both (x,t)- and (k,f)-domains and allow for adaptive seperation of signal and ground roll. Both linear and non-linear filtering are discussed using the unique properties of these basis that allow for simultaneous localization in the both domains. Eventhough, the linear filtering techniques are encouraging the true added value of these basis-function techniques becomes apparent when we use these decompositions to adaptively substract modeled ground roll from data using a non-linear thesholding procedure. We show real and synthetic examples and the results suggest that these directional-selective basis functions provide a usefull tool for the removal of coherent noise such as ground roll

Ce travail s’inscrit dans le cadre du développement d’une médecine davantage personnalisée et préventive, pour laquelle la fusion d’informations multi modale et de différentes représentations d'une même modalité sont nécessaires afin d'aboutir à une quantification fiable des images médicales en oncologie. Dans cette étude nous présentons deux applications de traitement et d'analyse des images médicales: le débruitage des images TEP et la détermination des volumes anatomo-fonctionnels des tumeurs en imagerie multi modale TEP/TDM. Pour le débruitage des images TEP, nous avons mis en place une approche intitulée "WCD" permettant de bénéficier des caractéristiques complémentaires de la transformée en ondelettes et la transformée en Curvelets afin de mieux représenter les structures isotropiques et anisotropiques dans ces images, ce qui permet de réduire le bruit tout en minimisant les pertes d'informations utiles dans les images TEP. En ce qui concerne la deuxième application, nous avons proposé une méthode de segmentationTEP/TDM intitulée "WCHMT" permettant d'exploiter la spécificité des arbres de Markov caché de prendre en compte les dépendances statistiques entre l’ensemble des données. Ce modèle permet de gérer simultanément les propriétés complémentaires de l’imagerie fonctionnelle et l’imagerie morphologique dans un cadre unifié où les données sont représentées dans le domaine des Contourlets. Le débruitage en TEP a abouti à une hausse significative du rapport signal sur-bruit (SNR) en garantissant la moindre variation de l'intensité et du contraste local. Quant à la segmentation multimodale TEP/TDM, elle a démontré une bonne précision lors de la détermination du volume tumoral en terme du coefficient de Dice (DSC) avec le meilleur compromis entre la sensibilité (SE) et la valeur prédictive positive (PPV) par rapport à la vérité terrain. / This thesis is a part of the development of more personalized and preventive medicine, for which a fusion of multi modal information and diverse representations of the same modality is needed in order to get accurate and reliable quantification of medical images in oncology. In this study we present two applications for image processing analysis: PET denoising and multimodal PET/CT tumor segmentation. The PET filtering approach called "WCD" take benefit from the complementary features of the wavelet and Curvelets transforms in order to better represent isotropic and anisotropic structures in PET images. This algorithm allows the reduction of the noise while minimizing the loss of useful information in PET images. The PET/CT tumor segmentation application is performed through a Markov model as a probabilistic quadtree graph namely a Hidden Markov Tree (HMT).Our motivation for using such a model is to provide fast computation, improved robustness and an effective interpretational framework for image analysis on oncology. Thanks to two efficient aspects (multi observation and multi resolution), when dealing with Hidden Markov Tree (HMT), we exploit joint statistical dependencies between hidden states to handle the whole data stack. This model called "WCHMT" take advantage of the high resolution of the anatomic imaging (CT) and the high contrast of the functional imaging (PET). The denoising approach led to the best trade-off between denoising quality and structure preservation with the least quantitative bias in absolute intensity recovery. PET/CT segmentation's results performed with WCHMT method has proven a reliable segmentation when providing high Dice Similarity Coeffcient (DSC) with the best trade-off between sensitivity (SE) and positive predictive value (PPV).

This work deals with image compression using wavelet transformation. At the beginning , you can find theoretical information about the best known techniques used for image compression , a thorough description of wavelet transormation and the EBCOT algorithm. A significant part of the work is devoted to the library's own implementation . Another chapter of the diploma thesis deals with the comparison and evaluation of the achieved results of the processed library with the JPEG2000 format

Various methods describes an image by specific shapes, which are called basis or frames. With these basis can be transformed the image into a representation by transformation coefficients. The aim is that the image can be described by a small number of coefficients to obtain so-called sparse representation. This feature can be used for example for image compression. But basis are not able to describe all the shapes that may appear in the image. This lack increases the number of transformation coefficients describing the image. The aim of this thesis is to study the general principle of calculating the transformation coefficients and to compare classical methods of image analysis with some of the new methods of image analysis. Compares effectiveness of method for image reconstruction from a limited number of coefficients and a noisy image. Also, compares image interpolation method using characteristics of two different transformations with bicubic transformation. Theoretical part describes the transformation methods. Describes some methods from aspects of multi/resolution, localization in time and frequency domains, redundancy and directionality. Furthermore, gives examples of transformations on a particular image. The practical part of the thesis compares efficiency of the Fourier, Wavelet, Contourlet, Ridgelet, Radon, Wavelet Packet and WaveAtom transform in image recontruction from a limited number of the most significant transformation coefficients. Besides, ability of image denoising using these methods with thresholding techniques applied to transformation coefficients. The last section deals with the interpolation of image interpolation by combining of two methods and compares the results with the classical bicubic interpolation.

This thesis deals with image compression using wavelet, contourlet and shearlet transformation. It starts with quick look at image compression problem a quality measurement. Next are presented basic concepts of wavelets, multiresolution analysis and scaling function and detailed look at each transform. Representatives of algorithms for coeficients coding are EZW, SPIHT and marginally EBCOT. In second part is described design and implementation of constructed library. Last part compare result of transforms with format JPEG 2000. Comparison resulted in determining type of image in which implemented contourlet and shearlet transform were more effective than wavelet. Format JPEG 2000 was not exceeded.

<p>In this thesis we present new methods for image and video super resolution and video deinterlacing. For image super resolution a new approach for finding a High Resolution (HR) image from a single Low Resolution (LR) image has been introduced. We have done this by employing Compressive Sensing (CS) theory. In CS framework images are assumed to be sparse in a transform domain such as wavelets or contourlets. Using this fact we have developed an approach in which the contourlet domain is considered as the transform domain and a CS algorithm is used to find the high resolution image. Following that, we extend our image super resolution scheme to video super resolution. Our video super resolution method has two steps, the first step consists of our image super resolution method which is applied on each frame separately. Then a post processing step is performed on estimated outputs to increase the video quality. The post processing step consists of a deblurring and a Bilateral Total Variation (BTV) filtering for increasing the video consistency. Experimental results show significant improvement over existing image and video super resolution methods both objectively and subjectively.</p> <p>For video deinterlacing problem a method has been proposed which is also a two step approach. At first 6 interpolators are applied to each missing line and the interpolator which gives the minimum error is selected. An initial deinterlaced frame is constructed using selected interpolator. In the next step this initial deinterlaced frame is fed into a post processing step. The post processing step is a modified version of 2-D Bilateral Total Variation filter. The proposed deinterlacing technique outperforms many existing deinterlacing algorithms.</p> / Master of Science (MSc)

This thesis presents the novel use of Coherent Point Drift in improving the robustness of a number of computer vision applications. CPD approach includes two methods for registering two images - rigid and non-rigid point set approaches which are based on the transformation model used. The key characteristic of a rigid transformation is that the distance between points is preserved, which means it can be used in the presence of translation, rotation, and scaling. Non-rigid transformations - or affine transforms - provide the opportunity of registering under non-uniform scaling and skew. The idea is to move one point set coherently to align with the second point set. The CPD method finds both the non-rigid transformation and the correspondence distance between two point sets at the same time without having to use a-priori declaration of the transformation model used. The first part of this thesis is focused on speaker identification in video conferencing. A real-time, audio-coupled video based approach is presented, which focuses more on the video analysis side, rather than the audio analysis that is known to be prone to errors. CPD is effectively utilised for lip movement detection and a temporal face detection approach is used to minimise false positives if face detection algorithm fails to perform. The second part of the thesis is focused on multi-exposure and multi-focus image fusion with compensation for camera shake. Scale Invariant Feature Transforms (SIFT) are first used to detect keypoints in images being fused. Subsequently this point set is reduced to remove outliers, using RANSAC (RANdom Sample Consensus) and finally the point sets are registered using CPD with non-rigid transformations. The registered images are then fused with a Contourlet based image fusion algorithm that makes use of a novel alpha blending and filtering technique to minimise artefacts. The thesis evaluates the performance of the algorithm in comparison to a number of state-of-the-art approaches, including the key commercial products available in the market at present, showing significantly improved subjective quality in the fused images. The final part of the thesis presents a novel approach to Vehicle Make & Model Recognition in CCTV video footage. CPD is used to effectively remove skew of vehicles detected as CCTV cameras are not specifically configured for the VMMR task and may capture vehicles at different approaching angles. A LESH (Local Energy Shape Histogram) feature based approach is used for vehicle make and model recognition with the novelty that temporal processing is used to improve reliability. A number of further algorithms are used to maximise the reliability of the final outcome. Experimental results are provided to prove that the proposed system demonstrates an accuracy in excess of 95% when tested on real CCTV footage with no prior camera calibration.

Com o avanço da tecnologia, as estratégias tradicionais para identificação de pessoas se tornaram mais suscetíveis a falhas, de forma a superar essas dificuldades algumas abordagens vêm sendo propostas na literatura. Dentre estas abordagens destaca-se a Biometria. O campo da Biometria abarca uma grande variedade de tecnologias usadas para identificar e verificar a identidade de uma pessoa por meio da mensuração e análise de aspectos físicos e/ou comportamentais do ser humano. Em função disso, a biometria tem um amplo campo de aplicações em sistemas que exigem uma identificação segura de seus usuários. Os sistemas biométricos mais populares são baseados em reconhecimento facial ou de impressões digitais. Entretanto, existem outros sistemas biométricos que utilizam a íris, varredura de retina, voz, geometria da mão e termogramas faciais. Nos últimos anos, o reconhecimento biométrico obteve avanços na sua confiabilidade e precisão, com algumas modalidades biométricas oferecendo bom desempenho global. No entanto, mesmo os sistemas biométricos mais avançados ainda enfrentam problemas. Recentemente, esforços têm sido realizados visando empregar diversas modalidades biométricas de forma a tornar o processo de identificação menos vulnerável a ataques. Biometria multimodal é uma abordagem relativamente nova para representação de conhecimento biométrico que visa consolidar múltiplas modalidades biométricas. A multimodalidade é baseada no conceito de que informações obtidas a partir de diferentes modalidades se complementam. Consequentemente, uma combinação adequada dessas informações pode ser mais útil que o uso de informações obtidas a partir de qualquer uma das modalidades individualmente. As principais questões envolvidas na construção de um sistema biométrico unimodal dizem respeito à definição das técnicas de extração de característica e do classificador. Já no caso de um sistema biométrico multimodal, além destas questões, é necessário definir o nível de fusão e a estratégia de fusão a ser adotada. O objetivo desta dissertação é investigar o emprego de ensemble para fusão das modalidades biométricas, considerando diferentes estratégias de fusão, lançando-se mão de técnicas avançadas de processamento de imagens (tais como transformada Wavelet, Contourlet e Curvelet) e Aprendizado de Máquina. Em especial, dar-se-á ênfase ao estudo de diferentes tipos de máquinas de aprendizado baseadas em métodos de Kernel e sua organização em arranjos de ensemble, tendo em vista a identificação biométrica baseada em face e íris. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que a abordagem proposta é capaz de projetar um sistema biométrico multimodal com taxa de reconhecimento superior as obtidas pelo sistema biométrico unimodal. / With the advancement of technology, traditional strategies for identifying people become more susceptible to failure, in order to overcome these difficulties some approaches have been proposed in the literature. Among these approaches highlights the Biometrics. The field of Biometrics encompasses a wide variety of technologies used to identify and verify the person\'s identity through the measurement and analysis of physiological and behavioural aspects of the human body. As a result, biometrics has a wide field of applications in systems that require precise identification of their users. The most popular biometric systems are based on face recognition and fingerprint matching. Furthermore, there are other biometric systems that utilize iris and retinal scan, speech, face, and hand geometry. In recent years, biometrics authentication has seen improvements in reliability and accuracy, with some of the modalities offering good performance. However, even the best biometric modality is facing problems. Recently, big efforts have been undertaken aiming to employ multiple biometric modalities in order to make the authentication process less vulnerable to attacks. Multimodal biometrics is a relatively new approach to biometrics representation that consolidate multiple biometric modalities. Multimodality is based on the concept that the information obtained from different modalities complement each other. Consequently, an appropriate combination of such information can be more useful than using information from single modalities alone. The main issues involved in building a unimodal biometric System concern the definition of the feature extraction technique and type of classifier. In the case of a multimodal biometric System, in addition to these issues, it is necessary to define the level of fusion and fusion strategy to be adopted. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the use of committee machines to fuse multiple biometric modalities, considering different fusion strategies, taking into account advanced methods in machine learning. In particular, it will give emphasis to the analyses of different types of machine learning methods based on Kernel and its organization into arrangements committee machines, aiming biometric authentication based on face, fingerprint and iris. The results showed that the proposed approach is capable of designing a multimodal biometric System with recognition rate than those obtained by the unimodal biometrics Systems.