An Effective Termination Criterion for the Rudin-Osher-Fatemi Algorithm for Image Restoration

The Rudin-Osher-Fatemi (ROF) algorithm for de-noising and de-blurring of still digital images is well known to offer excellent image restoration performance. However, application of the ROF algorithm in the past has indicated that one can get the best results from the algorithm only when one terminates the algorithm at the "right time" which turns out to be way before the corresponding parabolic partial differential equation converges to its steady-state solution, and the determination of that right time for terminating the algorithm becomes a key issue for the best utilization of the algorithm. In this paper, a simple yet effective termination criterion for the ROF algorithm is proposed. Performance results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed criterion when it is incorporated with the ROF algorithm.