An adaptive level set method for nondifferentiable constrained image recovery

The formulation of a wide variety of image recovery problems leads to the minimization of a convex objective over a convex set representing the constraints derived from a priori knowledge and consistency with the observed signals. In previous years, nondifferentiable objectives have become popular due in part to their ability to capture certain features such as sharp edges. They also arise naturally in minimax inconsistent set theoretic recovery problems. At the same time, the issue of developing reliable numerical algorithms to solve such convex programs in the context of image recovery applications has received little attention. We address this issue and propose an adaptive level set method for nondifferentiable constrained image recovery. The asymptotic properties of the method are analyzed and its implementation is discussed. Numerical experiments illustrate applications to total variation and minimax set theoretic image restoration and denoising problems.