• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2007.07a
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• pp.357-358
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• 2007

Contrast enhancement in the field of ultrasound imaging contributes to improve the accuracy of medical diagnosis by enhancing the visibility of ultrasound images. This paper proposes a contrast enhancement method that improves the contrast of ultrasound images both globally and locally by fusing global and adaptive contrast enhancement methods. Experimental results show that our approach yields more competitive results than the existing global and adaptive contrast enhancement methods in enhancing the visibility of ultrasound images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.15-24
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• 2008

This paper proposes a scheme of global image contrast enhancement using local contrast improvement. Methods of global image contrast enhancement redistribute the image gray level distribution using histogram equalization without considering image properties, and cause the result image to include image pixels with excessive brightness. On the other hand, methods of the block-based local image contrast enhancement have blocking artifacts and a problem of eliminating important image features during an image process to reduce them. In order to solve these problems, the proposed method executes the block-based histogram equalization on temporary images that an input image is divided into various fixed-size blocks. And then it performs the global contrast enhancement by applying the global histogram equalization functions to the original input image. Since the proposed method selects the best histogram equalization function from temporary images that are improved by the block-based local image contrast enhancement, it has the advantages of both the local and global image contrast enhancement approaches.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2004.08c
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• pp.867-871
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• 2004

In this paper, a new analytic approach for shape preserving contrast enhancement is presented. Contrast enhancement is achieved by means of segmental histogram stretching modification which preserves the given image shape, not distorting the original shape. After global stretching, the image is partitioned into several level-sets according to threshold condition. The image information of each level-set is represented as typical value based on grouped differential values. The basic property is modified into common local schemes, thereby introducing the enhanced effect through extreme discrimination between subsets. The scheme is based on stretching the histogram of subsets in which the intensity gray levels between connected pixels are approximately same In spite of histogram widening, stretched by local image information, it neither creates nor destroys the original image, thereby preserving image shape and enhancing the contrast. By designing local histogram stretching operations, we can preserve the original shape of level-sets of the image, and also enhance the global intensity. Thus it can hold the main properties of both global and local image schemes, which leads to versatile applications in the field of digital epigraphy.

• 전자공학회논문지 IE
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.31-41
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• 2009

The Image sensor of digital still camera has a limited dynamic range. In high dynamic range scenes, a picture often turns out to be underexposed or overexposed. Retinex algorithm based on the theory of the human visual perception is known to be effective contrast enhancement technique. However, it happens the unbalanced contrast enhancement which is the global contrast increased, and the local contrast decreased in the high dynamic range scenes. In this paper, to enhance the both global and local contrast, we propose the weight mapping retinex algorithm. Weight map is composed of the edge and exposure data which are extracted in the each retinex image, and merged with the retinex images in the fusion processing. According to the output picture comparing and numerical analysis, the proposed algorithm gives the better output image with the increased global and local contrast.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.15 no.12
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• pp.1409-1416
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• 2012

An image segmentation result depends on pre-processing steps such as contrast enhancement, edge detection, and smooth filtering etc. Especially medical images are low contrast and contain some noises. Therefore, the contrast enhancement and noise removal techniques are required in the pre-processing. In this study, we present an extension by a novel histogram equalization in which both local and global contrast is enhanced using neighborhood metrics. When checking neighborhood information, filters can simultaneously improve image quality. Most important is that original image information can be used for both global brightness preserving and local contrast enhancement, and image quality improvement filtering. Our experiments confirmed that the proposed method is more effective than other similar techniques reported previously.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.76-86
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• 2017

In this study, we propose an automatic contrast enhancement method based on transfer function modification (TFM) by histogram equalization. Previous histogram-based global contrast enhancement techniques employ histogram modification, whereas we propose a direct TFM technique that considers the mean brightness of an image during contrast enhancement. The mean point shifting method using a transfer function is proposed to preserve the mean brightness of an image. In addition, the linearization of transfer function technique, which has a histogram flattening effect, is designed to reduce visual artifacts. An attenuation factor is automatically determined using the maximum value of the probability density function in an image to control its rate of contrast. A new quantitative measurement method called sparsity of a histogram is proposed to obtain a better objective comparison relative to previous global contrast enhancement methods. According to our experimental results, we demonstrated the performance of our proposed method based on generalized measures and the newly proposed measurement.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.496-508
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• 2017

In this paper, we propose a Tone Mapping Operator (TMO) that preserves global contrast and precisely preserves boundary information. In order to reconstruct a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image to a Low Dynamic Range (LDR) display by using Threshold value vs. Intensity value (TVI) based on Human Visual System (HVS) and contrast value. As a result, the global contrast of the image can be preserved. In addition, by combining the boundary information detected using Guided Image Filtering (GIF) and the detected boundary information using the spatial masking of the Just Noticeable Difference (JND) model, And improved the perceived image quality of the output image. The conventional TMOs are classified into Global Tone Mapping (GTM) and Local Tone Mapping (LTM). GTM preserves global contrast, has the advantages of simple implementation and fast execution time, but it has a disadvantage in that the boundary information of the image is lost and the regional contrast is not preserved. On the other hand, the LTM preserves the local contrast and boundary information of the image well, but some areas are expressed unnatural like the occurrence of the halo artifact phenomenon in the boundary region, and the calculation complexity is higher than that of GTM. In this paper, we propose TMO which preserves global contrast and combines the merits of GTM and LTM to preserve boundary information of images. Experimental results show that the proposed tone mapping technique has superior performance in terms of cognitive quality.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.29-41
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• 2013

The digital camera is impossible to preserve the appearance of a scene containing high dynamic range due to a limitations of the sensing hardware. The Retinex was proposed on the purpose to solve these problems. While the Retinex enhances visibility and color constancy, it sometimes suffers from color distortion, halo effect and reduced global contrast. This paper presents an advanced Retinex algorithm working on the YCbCr color coordinate to reduce the processing time and to improve the global contrast and color. Simulation results show that our algorithm significantly reduces the total processing time, and provide the superior result image by improving the global contrast and color consistency as well as by reducing the halo effect around the boundaries.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.38A no.11
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• pp.928-937
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• 2013

This paper presents a novel contrast enhancement method based on singular value decomposition and image pyramid. The proposed method consists mainly of four steps. The proposed algorithm firstly decomposes image into band-pass images, including basis image and detail images, to improve both the global contrast and the local detail. In the global contrast process, singular value decomposition is used for contrast enhancement; the local detail scheme uses weighting factors. In the final image composition process, the proposed algorithm combines color and luminance components in order to preserve the color consistency. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves contrast performance and enhances detail compared to conventional methods.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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• v.11 no.6
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• pp.737-745
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• 2008

In this paper, a novel neighborhood metric of histogram equalization (HE) algorithm for contrast enhancement is presented. We present a refinement of HE using neighborhood metrics with a general framework which orders pixels based on a sequence of sorting functions which uses both global and local information to remap the image greylevels. We tested a novel sorting key with the suggestion of using the original image greylevel as the primary key and a novel neighborhood distinction metric as the secondary key, and compared HE using proposed distinction metric and other HE methods such as global histogram equalization (GHE), HE using voting metric and HE using contrast difference metric. We found that our method can preserve advantages of other metrics, while reducing drawbacks of them and avoiding undesirable over-enhancement that can occur with local histogram equalization (LHE) and other methods.