Human visual system modelling for real-time salt and pepper noise removal

Pixel failures often introduce in digital images a characteristic impulsive noise, known as "salt & pepper". This has to be corrected to get clear digital images. In this paper a new approach to the problem, based on an adequate model of the sensor and on the properties of the Human Visual System, is introduced. The local background luminance is estimated through a 3x3 median filter, and noise standard deviation from the sensor model. Since the filter is based only on local operations, it can work at real-time rates (less than 0.7s for 12 bit, 4.8MPixel images). Its speed may be even improved by using DSP implementation.