noise estimation from remote sensing images by fractal theory and adaptive image block division

Abstract

A novel approach for additive noise estimation from highly textured optical remote sensing images has been proposed, which is based on fractal theory and adaptive image block division. Different from the conventional regular block division based noise estimation methods, the divided adaptive image blocks with the proposed method are adhering to the local image information, which are most likely to be homogeneous blocks. Combining with the week textured image region detection using fractal theory and noise standard deviation calculation using statistical analysis, the proposed method can automatically estimate additive noise intensity from optical remote sensing images. Quantified analysis of experiments with ZY-3 satellite images demonstrates that the proposed method is applicable to optical remote sensing images with various complexities and different noise levels. Meanwhile, the notion of week textured image region detection and adaptive image block division can also be applied to multiplicative noise estimation from radar images after modification.