Dual stack filters and the modified difference of estimates approach to edge detection

The theory of optimal stack filtering has been used in the difference of estimates (DoE) approach to the detection of intensity edges in noisy images. In this paper, the DoE approach is modified by imposing a symmetry condition on the data used to train the two stack filters. Under this condition, the stack filters obtained are duals of each other. Only one filter must therefore be trained; the other is simply its dual. This new technique is called the symmetric difference of estimates (SDoE) approach. The dual stack filters obtained under the SDoE approach are shown to be comparable. This allows the difference of these two filters to be represented by a single equivalent edge operator. This latter result suggests that an edge operator can be found by directly training a (possibly nonpositive) Boolean function to be used on each level of the threshold decomposition architecture. This approach, which is called the threshold Boolean filter (TBF) approach, requires less training time but produces operators that are less robust than those produced by the SDoE approach. This is demonstrated and interpreted via comparisons of results for natural images.