DEFINITION, EVALUATION AND TASK-ORIENTED APPLICATION OF IMAGE SMOOTHNESS ESTIMATES

Abstract

Throughout the last decade development and implementation of digital data processing technologies was an area of increasing interest. Special and constant attention was paid, mainly, to the processing of graphical information, i.e. to the analysis, efficient encoding (compression) and rendering of digital images. Scientific inquiry into the area was stipulated by the necessity and strong desire to make great quantities of visual information more intelligible and more attractive for a widening round of users. In the paper, the task-oriented use of image smoothness estimates is analysed. Firstly, the notion of smoothness of a generalized digital image is introduced; secondly, two highly valuable properties (invariance and continuity) of image smoothness estimates are formulated and proved; finally, a new objective computational procedure for the determination of image smoothness estimates is proposed. In parallels, some interesting digital image compression ideas (strategies), based on the direct application of image smoothness estimates, are described.