AUTOMATIC BACKGROUND REMOVAL METHOD AND SYSTEM

A method and system for automatically removing noise from images. First, a current pixel is received. Next, an activity metric of the current pixel is computed by using the current pixel and a neighborhood of pixels related to the current pixel. Then, a distance metric that indicates the likelihood that the current pixel is a background pixel is computed by using the activity metric and at least one background parameter. The distance metric provides a soft thresholding framework for the background removal. The current pixel is modified based on the distance metric.