Biomedical image and signal de-noising using dual tree complex wavelet transform

Abstract

Dual tree complex wavelet transform(DTCWT) is a form of discrete wavelet transform, which generates complex coefficients by using a dual tree of wavelet filters to obtain their real and imaginary parts. The purposes of de-noising are reducing noise level and improving signal to noise ratio (SNR) without distorting the signal or image. This paper proposes a method for removing white Gaussian noise from ECG signals and biomedical images. The discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is very valuable in a large scope of de-noising problems. However, it has limitations such as oscillations of the coefficients at a singularity, lack of directional selectivity in higher dimensions, aliasing and consequent shift variance. The complex wavelet transform CWT strategy that we focus on in this paper is Kingsbury's and Selesnick's dual tree CWT (DTCWT) which outperforms the critically decimated DWT in a range of applications, such as de-noising. Each complex wavelet is oriented along one of six possible directions, and the magnitude of each complex wavelet has a smooth bell-shape. In the final part of this paper, we present biomedical image and signal de-noising by the means of thresholding magnitude of the wavelet coefficients.