Gaussian noise filter using variable step time matrix of PCNN

A novel method was brought forward for the purpose of filtering Gaussian noise effectively by using variable step time matrix of the simplified pulse coupled neural network (PCNN). Firstly, the time matrix of PCNN, related to the grayscale and spatial information of an image, is calculated to identify the noise polluted pixels. Subsequently, a variable step, a long step for strong noise and a short step for weak noise, based on the time matrix is applied to modify the grayscale of noised pixels in a sliding window. And then wiener filter is used to the image to further filter the noise. Experiments show that the proposed filter can remove Gaussian noise effectively than other noise reduction methods such as median filter, mean filter, wiener filter etc, and the filtered image is smooth and the details and edges are sharp. Compared with existing PCNN based Gaussian noise filter, the proposed filter gets higher Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) and better performance.