Fuzzy impulse noise reduction methods for color images

The reduction or removal of noise in a color image is an essential part of image processing, whether the final information is used for human perception or for an automatic inspection and analysis. In addition to all the classical based filters for noise reduction, many fuzzy inspired filters have been developed during the past years [3-26]. However, it is very difficult to judge the quality of all these different filters. For which noise types are they designed? How do they perform compared to each other? Are there some filters that clearly outperform the others? Do the numerical results correspond with the visual results? In this paper we answer these questions for color images that are corrupted with impulse noise. We also have developed a Java Applet (http://www.filzzy.ugent.be/Dortmund.html). The Java Applet is used to compare all the mentioned filters with each other. It illustrates the numerical and visual performance of all these filters. Users have the possibility to load and corrupt an image from a predefined list.