Design of a color image processing algorithm using online arithmetic modules

Abstract

A new class of nonlinear filters for color image processing was proposed by Lucchese and Mitra. This type of color filter processes the chromatic component of images encoded in the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) u'v' color space. Images processed by this filter do not show color shifts near edges between regions with different intensities. The filter uses linear convolution operations internally and is effective and efficient for denoising and regularizing color images. Image processing systems are computationally intensive and usually require a large amount of area in order to reach desirable levels of performance. The use of on-line arithmetic can decrease the area of the hardware implementation and still maintain a reasonable throughput. This work presents the design of the color filter as a network of on-line arithmetic modules. The network topology and some detail of each arithmetic module are provided. The final implementation targets FPGAs and it is compared in terms of area against an estimate of a conventional design. The throughput of this solution is capable of supporting real-time processing of common image formats.