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.
Edge detection includes a variety of mathematical methods that aim at identifying edges, curves in a at which the image brightness changes sharply or, more formally, has discontinuities. The same problem of finding discontinuities in one-dimensional signals is known as step detection and the problem of finding signal discontinuities over time is known as change detection. Edge detection is a fundamental tool in , machine vision and computer vision, particularly in the areas of feature detection and feature extraction.