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Image Enhancement Using Nonlinear

Filtering Based Neural Network
Feras N. Hasoon, Jabar H. Yousif, Nebras N.Hasson, and
Abd Rahman Ramli

Abstract— the aim of this paper is to propose an enhancement method to solve the problem of Impulsive noise in image
processing An optimization technique utilize a nonlinear filter based neural network is presented and design, a novel filter to
reduce the impulsive noise has been developed as well as. The implementation of a weight median filter (WMF) and neural
network gives efficient impulsive noise suppression and an excellent image detail-preserving capability. The adjustment of the
weight coefficients of the WMF have been done using a back-propagation (BP) learning techniques with supervised multi-layer
perceptron (MLP) feed-forward networks. A user interface using MATLAB software is designed and implemented.

Index Terms— Impulsive noise, weight median filter, Image processing, artificial intelligence application, soft computing.

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION

O ne of the aims of image processing is to enhance the

visual appearance of images. Besides, it helps organ-
izing the images for measurement of the features
and structures. Currently, a digital image is acquired
through a suitable digital imaging system [9]. Although
the current technology has enormously advanced, no im-
aging system is idealistic in producing images that are
identical to their originals since of the inherent physical
limitations [11].
The noise repression or noise removal is an essential
process in images processing [12]. The nonlinear filters
have been successfully implemented in smoothing images
corrupted by impulses and substituted for linear filters
because of their better edge preservation and impulse
rejection capabilities [8]. On other hand, the Artificial
Neural Network (ANN) is a computational system that
emulated the human brain mechanism [2]. A neural net-
work is an influential data modeling tools which is capa-
ble to utilize and illustrate a data sets has complex rela-
tionships either linear or non-linear data. There are par-
ticular characteristics that stimulate scientists to approve
neural network modeling in the different application
fields. The most important features are full computation,
massive parallelism, uniformity, distribution and
knowledge representation, learn, train and, generalization
ability, [5].
Neural networks successfully applied in a numerous ap-
plications such as data classifications, resource allocation
and scheduling, data analysis and mining, speech pro-
duction and recognition, pattern recognition, etc. Neural
————————————————
 Feras N. Hasoon is Assistant Professor at Sohar University, Sohar, Sultan-
ate of Oman
 Jabar H. Yousif is Assistant Professor at Sohar University, Sohar, Sultan- the
ate of Oman
 Nebras N. Hasson is Lecturer at Sohar University, Sohar, Sultanate of
Oman
 Engineering, University Putra Malaysia,43400 UPM, Serdang, Selan-
gorDE, Malaysia
networks are consisting of a number of highly intercon-
nected processing elements called neurons, which takes a
number of inputs and giving an individual output [5, 6].
These neurons divided into three types known as input
layer, hidden layer and output layers. The network has
one input and one output layer. The hidden layers can
differ from 0 to any number. The exception of the input
layer is that it does not consist of a transfer function. Neu-
rons are function in parallel, with decentralized control to
give the solution for specific problems. The neurons are
organized in a specific structure, which is usually con-
nected in layers. In image processing, median filtering has
been proved a very powerful method in removing impul-
sive noise [16]. The median filter is not, however, neither
a perfect filtering operation nor it is very flexible. It may
cause edge jitter, streaking and may remove important
image details.
In standard images forms, the noise can be modeled
with either a Gaussian ("normal"), uniform, or salt-and-
pepper ("impulse") distribution. The Gaussian Noise
model is most often used to model natural noise process-
es, such as those occurring from electronic nose in the
image acquisition system. Uniform Noise is useful be-
cause it can be used to generate any other type of noise
distributed and is often used to degrade images for the
evaluation of image restoration algorithms because it
provides the most unbiased or neutral noise model. In
addition, Salt and Pepper noise is naturally caused by
errors in the data transmission, malfunctioning pixel ele-
ments in camera sensors, faulty memory locations, or tim-
ing errors in the digitization process.
Weighted median filter is an extension of the median
filter. It introduces the concept of weight coefficient into
median filter. Weighted median filters are used to
reduce impulsive noise and to preserve sharp edges in
image signal efficiently [13].
Design of the WMF is believed to be a difficult prob-
lem, since there are no general methods to determine and
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design the WMF. A method of determining the weight
coefficients by designing the property for image features
within a window has been suggested [1].
This paper aims to design and utilze a method for de-
temining prpopoer weight coefficients based on super-
vised MLP feed-forward networks which use back-
propagation learning techniques. The learning algorithm
has been needed a training set of a pair of images; a noisy
input and ideal output images.
One of the most important extensions of the median filter
is the Weighted Median filter (WMF) [10]. With a proper
weight set, the WMF has efficient impulsive noise sup-
pression and an excellent image detail-preserving capa-
bility. It has been successfully applied in various areas
such as noise reduction [7], image restoration, field inter-
X1
W1

X2 Y
2 WEIGHT MEDIAN FILTER W2 MED
Output
Salt and pepper noise common image processing prob-
lem, the noise is caused by errors in the data transmis-
sion, malfunctioning pixel elements in camera sensors, XN
WN
faulty memory locations, or timing errors in the digitiza-
tion process and most scanned images contains noise in Figure 1: Weight Median Filter
form of darker dots and disturbances caused by the scan-
ning process. In case we cannot reduce the noise that is polation, and image differential pulse code modulation
mean, the image could be wrongly interpreted. Noise is (DPCM) coding. Figure 1 show a structure of a WMF.
any undesired information that contaminates an image. The weight median filter, which is the most commonly
Noise appears in images from various sources. The digital used one, assumes positive integer weights with odd
image acquisition process is transforming an optical im- sum. For the discrete-time continuous-valued input vec-
age into a continuous electrical signal. Thus, the sampling
tor
X   X , X , , X
1 2 
N , the output Y of the WMF of
of electrical signal will consider as a primary source of the
noise in the digital [18]. span associated with the integer weights.
There are several sources of noise, which appears in W  W1 ,W2 ,,W N 
(1)
the images, depending on how the image is created. For is given by
example: Y  MED W1  X 1 , W2  X 2 ,  , WN  X N  (2)
-If the image created using a scanned photograph of a
made film, then the film grain is consider as a source of where MED
 denotes the median operation and  de-
noise. Noise can also be the result of damage to the film, notes duplication, i.e.,
or be introduced by scanner itself. K times
 
-If the image is acquired directly in a digital format, the K  X  X , , X
mechanism for gathering the data (such as a Charge (3)
Couped Diode (CCD) detector) can introduce noise. The filtering procedure can be stated as follows:
-Electronic transmission of image data can introduce -sort the samples inside the filter window.
noise [14]. -duplicate each sample Xi to the number of the corre-
On other hand, there are different ways to remove or sponding weight Wi and choose the median value from
reduce noise in an image. Different methods are better for the new sequence, for example, consider a length 5 WM
different kinds of noise. The methods available include filter with integer weights (1, 2, 3, 2, 1).
Average filter, Median filter. -Now apply the filter to the following sequence so that
The averaging filter is useful to remove certain types of the window is centered at the sample value 8, X = (-1, 5,
noise; it is good with white noise. The average filter is 8, 11, -2).
replacing the value of every pixel in an image by the av-
erage of the gray levels in the neighborhood defined by 3 IMAGE RESTORATION MODEL
the filter mask [9]. The Disadvantages of the Average
The image restoration model has three stages, as de-
Filter is tend to blur sharp edges and to destroy lines,
picted in Figure 2.
edges and other fine image details, fail to remove heavy
tailed distribution noise effectively.
The Median filters are especially good at removing im-
pulsive noise from images. The particular nonlinearity of
the median filter permits it to smooth an image without
the degree of blurring that a linear filter with similar
smoothing characteristics can introduce [15]. The Disad-
vantage median filter is not a perfect filtering operation Figure 2: The Image Restoration Model
and not very flexible. It may cause edge jitter, streaking
and may remove important image details.
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 1 
Y  f   W (i ) X (i )   W ( i )  1 
 i T 2 i T

The additive noise to actual image in the first stage im-

plemented using the Salt and pepper noise, Figure 3
shows additive noise N(n) to the image I(n), the degrada-
tion operation g(n) produces a degraded image D(n).
g(n)
I(n) D(n)
N(n)
Figure 3: Degradation Model
The output of this stage is noisy image, which will use
as an input for the neural network (second stage). The
neural network helps to determine the weight of coeffi-
cients for the median filter, which will use in the final
stage to restore the image. Each neuron in the neural net-
work used to configure a pixel into the image. The opera-
tion of neuron represents the binary weight median filter,
the output of neuron is 1 if the summation of pixel values
multiplied by the corresponding weight coefficients is
greater than a half of the summation of the weight coeffi-
cients, otherwise its 0. Consider we have the following
example:
Weight coeffi- Binary pixel
cients value
4 NEURAL NETWORK MODEL DESIGN
The architecture of network is the arrangement of neu-
rons into layers and the connection pattern within and
between layers. This pattern is demonstrated as: ‘R-S1-S2-
S3’, which means that the input layer consists of R inputs.
And, there are two hidden layers named S1 and S2 neu-
rons respectively [6]. The output layer is referred as S3
neurons. In the instant, we need to define the architecture
and the transfer function of each neuron in the network.
In addition, the values of its weights should also be de-
fined. The process of adjust of weights of the NN to
‘match’ set of samples is called training.
On the authority of network generalization, the
‘match’ of training sets enables us to conclude from un-
seen samples. Multi layer perceptrons (MLP) it is a kind
of networks comprise of several layers of computational
neurons, commonly organized in a feed-forward tech-
nique. Each neuron in a single layer has directed connec-
tions to the neurons of the successive layer (one or more
hidden layers) [2,5]. The sigmoid function is the most
popular used as an activation function in many applica-
tions.
Our model the network architecture has three layers;
the first layer is correspond the input binary noisy image,
second layer represents the weight, and the third layer is
the output image, as depicted in Figure 5.

2 1 2 0 1 0
N
1 3 1 0 1 1
N x1
w
2 1 2 1 0 0 y1
N

Therefore, it computes as follows: N xn

w
 Pixel value  weighted coefficients yn

 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 31 + 1 + 2 1 + 0 + 0 = 7 . N
xN
Figure 4 shows the mechanism of computation of Binary w yN
Weighted Median Filter and output of Neuron. N
Input layer Weight Layer of
of source layer output
Input image nodes neurons
Border N N

Figure 5: Fully Connected Feed-forward Neural Network

Where:
x1 ,  , x N represent a window (3  3),

(5 5),………(N N). 
Figure 4: Binary Weighted Median Filter and Neuron y1 ,  , y N the output neurons, each of which represents
one pixel.
The output of neuron is determined as follows:
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w the weights of neural network model represent a win-
dow size of (3  3), (5  5),………(N  N), the size of
weight is equivalent to the size of input layer.
A number of learning algorithms are proposed and
amongst them the back-propagation learning algorithm is
the broadly used [5]. In this method, an error signal is
computed the difference between outputs that generated
by the network and desired output which is propagated
in the backward direction to correct the synaptic weights
according to the error signal. Throughout the learning
procedure, the purpose is to diminish an objective func-
tion such as the mean-squared error (MSE),
1 2
MSE  X L (i )  X A (i )
N (4)
 Then a specific filter will be chosen to restore im-
age, more than one filter can be used for checking
the program package.
 More than one image can be chosen for checking
the program procedure.
The experiments under taken are used 5  5, filtering
window and 256  256  8 bits “text” standard image are
used; text image has been figured in this paper.
Figure 7 shows original image, and Figure 8 shows
noisy image corrupted by salt and pepper noise of proba-
bility 5%. These images are used as the training set. Initial
values of the weight coefficients, 1 for W(0) and 0 for the
others, and   0.35 has been set. The trained set of
weight coefficients is shown in Figures 9.

The aim of the learning optimization of the weight co-

efficient W (i) is making the difference between the filter
output and the actual output as small as possible. Let the

input noisy image

X I (i ) , the intermediate output of the
X L (i )
network under the learning process is denoted ,
A
X (i )
and the output actual image . The learning process
to find proper weight is expressed as follows:

W N (i )  W O (i )   (i )
(5)

Where:
W N (i ) represents new weight coefficients
W O (i)
represents old weight coefficients
 (i ) represents correction term defined as follows:
Figure 6: User interface of proposed Program

(i) 
1
 
  X A (i)  X L (i) X I (i)
N i (6)
Where:
 represents learning factor.
N represents total pixel number of the image.

5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A MATLAB application is designed and implemented to
utilize a feed forward neural network and the weight
median filter as shown in figure 6. The procedure of Pro-
gram Package Steps is as follows:

 Choose First image, this program provides the flex-

ibility to choose image format.  
 Next step will be adding salt and pepper noise to
the chosen image.
Figure 7: Original Image
 Then determine the size-filtering windows.
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Figure 8: Salt and Pepper Noisy Image

Figure 12: Result of Median Filter Using 5  5
Filtering Window (MSE = 0.0588)

0.01 1.67 0.19 0.35 0.20

0.22 0.30 0.21 0.16 0.72
0.23 2.60 4.79 2.60 0.13
0.01 0.00 0.05 0.86 0.23
0.00 0.69 0.01 0.03 0.91
Figure 9: Trained Result of Weight Coefficients

0 2 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 1
0 3 5 3 0
0 0 0 1 0
0 1 0 0 1
Figure 10: Approximate Weight Coefficients

Figure 13: Result of WMF Using 5  5

Filtering Window (MSE = 0.0132)

As shown in figures 9 to 11 the MSE of WMF is signif-

icantly less than other filters, besides it have been ob-
served that the using of WMF removes the noise in im-
age. Moreover, the details of image are preserved effec-
tively.

Figure 11: Result of Average Filter Using 5  5
Filtering Window (MSE = 0.0360)
6 CONCLUSION
A new method for getting the weight coefficients
based WMF techniques has been design and implement-
ed. A multi-layer perceptron feed-forward networks is
used to find the best size of filtering window. The Back-
propagation learning method is used to adjust and adapt
the network. The using of weight median filter based
neural network not only shows efficient impulsive noise
suppression and an excellent image detail-preserving
capability, but also are suitable for implementing it in
other applications such as speech signal processing, dif-
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ferential pulse code modulation (DPCM) coding, parallel

processing and implementation by VLSI. As a future
work for the sake of finding the best solution for the mod-
ification of the weights of networks, genetic algorithms
(GA) can be used [3]. This evolutionary technique helps
to adapt the data set to the best possible solution accord-
ing to the inputs and the outputs of the system [4]. Be-
sides, it can determine the best filtering window dimen-
sions

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