Multiresolution neural networks for image edge detection and restoration

One of the methods for building an automatic visual system is to borrow the properties of the human visual system (HVS). Artificial neural networks are based on this doctrine and they have been applied to image processing and computer vision. This work focused on the plausibility of using a class of Hopfield neural networks for edge detection and image restoration. To this end, a quadratic energy minimization framework is presented. Central to this framework are relaxation operations, which can be implemented using the class of Hopfield neural networks. The role of the uncertainty principle in vision is described, which imposes a limit on the simultaneous localisation in both class and position space. It is shown how a multiresolution approach allows the trade off between position and class resolution and ensures both robustness in noise and efficiency of computation. As edge detection and image restoration are ill-posed, some a priori knowledge is needed to regularize these problems. A multiresolution network is proposed to tackle the uncertainty problem and the regularization of these ill-posed image processing problems. For edge detection, orientation information is used to construct a compatibility function for the strength of the links of the proposed Hopfield neural network. Edge detection 'results are presented for a number of synthetic and natural images which show that the iterative network gives robust results at low signal-to-noise ratios (0 dB) and is at least as good as many previous methods at capturing complex region shapes. For restoration, mean square error is used as the quadratic energy function of the Hopfield neural network. The results of the edge detection are used for adaptive restoration. Also shown are the results of restoration using the proposed iterative network framework