Characterization of minimizers of an anisotropic variant of the Rudin-Osher-Fatemi functional with $L^1$ fidelity term

Abstract

In this paper we study an anisotropic variant of the Rudin-Osher-Fatemi functional with $L^1$ fidelity term of the form \[ E(u) = \int_{\mathbb{R}^n} \phi(\nabla u) + \lambda \| u -f \|_{L^1(\mathbb{R}^n)}. \] We will characterize the minimizers of $E$ in terms of the Wulff shape of $\phi$ and the dual anisotropy. In particular we will calculate the subdifferential of $E$. We will apply this characterization to the special case $\phi = |\cdot|_1$ and $n=2$, which has been used in the denoising of 2D bar codes. In this case, we determine the shape of a minimizer $u$ when $f$ is the characteristic function of a circle.