|
25 March 2009 |
page update:
26 May 11
|
V5.50 -- October 1996
Wallis Filter
Locally Adaptive Contrast Enhancement
The Wallis Filter process in TNTmips V5.5 (Interpret / Raster / Filter /
Wallis) applies a locally-adaptive (spatially varying) contrast enhancement to
a grayscale raster. This filter is designed for grayscale images in which
there are significant areas of bright and dark tones. A typical global
contrast enhancement (e.g., Linear, Normalized) cannot simultaneously produce
good local contrast at both ends of the brightness range. A global contrast
stretch designed to provide detail in dark areas will likely saturate the
bright areas, and vice versa.
The Wallis Filter adjusts brightness values in local areas so that the
local mean and standard deviation match user-specified target values. This
enhancement produces good local contrast throughout the image, while reducing
the overall contrast between bright and dark areas. The algorithm uses an
image-partitioning and interpolation scheme to speed processing of the image.
The output raster is a user-controlled weighted average of the Wallis filter
output and the original image.
The illustrations on this page compare a normalized contrast stretch with
the Wallis filter result for an image with extensive dark lava flows and local
very bright salt flats. Significant local features such as fault scarps,
bedrock joint patterns, and alluvial fan drainage patterns are much more
evident in the Wallis-enhanced image.
Portion of Landsat scene (Band 3, Red) with normalized contrast. Little
local detail can be seen in areas with bright salt flats and very dark lava
flows:

Same scene with the Wallis filter applied. Contrast is altered to
provide a more uniform tone throughout the image, with greatly improved local
contrast in bright and dark areas:

Control window for Wallis filter in TNTmips:

©MicroImages, Inc. 2013 Published in the United States of America
11th Floor - Sharp Tower, 206 South 13th Street, Lincoln NE 68508-2010 USA
Business & Sales: (402)477-9554 Support: (402)477-9562 Fax: (402)477-9559
Business info@microimages.com
Support support@microimages.com
Web webmaster@microimages.com
|