IMAGE FILTERING BASED ON STRUCTURAL INFORMATION

A method and an apparatus for image filtering are described. Structural information is employed during the calculation of filtering coefficients. The structural information is described by the regions defined through an edge map of the image. In one embodiment, the region correlation between the target pixel and a contributing pixel is selected as a structural filtering coefficient. The region correlation, which indicates the possibility of two pixels being in the same regions, is calculated by evaluating the strongest edge cut by a path between the target pixel and a contributing pixel. The structural filtering coefficient is further combined with spatial information and intensity information to form a spatial-intensity-region (SIR) filter. The structural information based filter is applicable to applications such as denoising, tone mapping, and exposure fusion.