Feature selective template mode filtering

Mode filtering consists of modifying the domain point-pixel value of a template by the maximum of the probability density function of the image values contained within the template support, estimated by the local histogram. The limitations of mode filtering are addressed by feature selective templates utilized as structuring elements in morphological hit-miss transformations which preserve the edge intensity patterns potentially corrupted by the mode filtering operation. For nonunique modes, the central template pixel value is modified to the mode pixel value with the minimum absolute difference between these modes and the central template pixel. If the modes are symmetric about the central pixel value, producing equivalent minimum absolute differences, the template size is adaptively increased until a unique mode or a unique minimum absolute difference is obtained. Simulations are provided demonstrating the performance improvement of feature selective template mode filtering relative to other nonlinear image enhancement operations