A random-valued impulse noise detector using level detection

We propose a new detector of random-valued impulse noise in images using level detection. In our method, we use directional windows in order to search a level region in the images. One window, whose variation is lowest, is selected as a flat window from multi directional windows. In a flat window, random-valued impulse noise may move to both ends of the order statistics. Therefore, noise detection in the selected window is easy. Consequently, the proposed method reduces undetected noise pixels without increasing mis-detections. Extensive simulations indicate that the proposed method performs significantly better than conventional methods.