Median filter

The median filter is a non-linear digital filtering technique, often used to remove noise from an image or signal. Such noise reduction is a typical pre-processing step to improve the results of later processing (for example, edge detection on an image). Median filtering is very widely used in digital because, under certain conditions, it preserves edges while removing noise (but see the discussion below), also having applications in signal processing. The main idea of the median filter is to run through the signal entry by entry, replacing each entry with the median of neighboring entries. The pattern of neighbors is called the "window", which slides, entry by entry, over the entire signal. For one-dimensional signals, the most obvious window is just the first few preceding and following entries, whereas for two-dimensional (or higher-dimensional) data the window must include all entries within a given radius or ellipsoidal region (i.e. the median filter is not a separable filter). To demonstrate, using a window size of three with one entry immediately preceding and following each entry, a median filter will be applied to the following simple one-dimensional signal: x = (2, 3, 80, 6, 2, 3). So, the median filtered output signal y will be: y1 = med(2, 3, 80) = 3, (already 2, 3, and 80 are in the increasing order so no need to arrange them) y2 = med(3, 80, 6) = med(3, 6, 80) = 6, (3, 80, and 6 are rearranged to find the median) y3 = med(80, 6, 2) = med(2, 6, 80) = 6, y4 = med(6, 2, 3) = med(2, 3, 6) = 3, i.e. y = (3, 6, 6, 3). In the example above, because there is no entry preceding the first value, the first value is repeated, as with the last value, to obtain enough entries to fill the window. This is one way of handling missing window entries at the boundaries of the signal, but there are other schemes that have different properties that might be preferred in particular circumstances: Avoid processing the boundaries, with or without cropping the signal or image boundary afterwards, Fetching entries from other places in the signal.