NOVEL ADAPTIVE EDGE-PRESERVING SMOOTHING FILTER

An adaptive edge-preserving smoothing filter effectively reduces noise levels while preserving fine structures in data. The behavior of the filter is controlled easily by two control parameters. To adaptively control the behavior of the filter, the control parameter, .alpha., can be set as a function of the local directional variances. The control parameter, .beta., can be set as a function of all of the directional variances and directional means. The filter includes; a compute means which receives the filter window size, the number of filter directions and input data, adaptive weighting parameter map means which receives the control parameter, .alpha., adaptive weighting process means, adaptive combination parameter map means which receives the control parameter, .beta., and final compute means which provides the filtered output data.