arXiv subjects

Giulia Fracastoro

Publications and source records attributed to Giulia Fracastoro.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Graph Transform Optimization with Application to Image Compression

In this paper, we propose a new graph-based transform and illustrate its potential application to signal compression. Our approach relies on the careful design of a graph that optimizes the overall rate-distortion performance through an effective graph-based transform. We introduce a novel graph estimation algorithm, which uncovers the connectivities between the graph signal values by taking into consideration the coding of both the signal and the graph topology in rate-distortion terms. In particular, we introduce a novel coding solution for the graph by treating the edge weights as another graph signal that lies on the dual graph. Then, the cost of the graph description is introduced in the optimization problem by minimizing the sparsity of the coefficients of its graph Fourier transform (GFT) on the dual graph. In this way, we obtain a convex optimization problem whose solution defines an efficient transform coding strategy. The proposed technique is a general framework that can be applied to different types of signals, and we show two possible application fields, namely natural image coding and piecewise smooth image coding. The experimental results show that the proposed graph-based transform outperforms classical fixed transforms such as DCT for both natural and piecewise smooth images. In the case of depth map coding, the obtained results are even comparable to the state-of-the-art graph-based coding method, that are specifically designed for depth map images.

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arXiv2019

Deep Graph-Convolutional Image Denoising

Non-local self-similarity is well-known to be an effective prior for the image denoising problem. However, little work has been done to incorporate it in convolutional neural networks, which surpass non-local model-based methods despite only exploiting local information. In this paper, we propose a novel end-to-end trainable neural network architecture employing layers based on graph convolution operations, thereby creating neurons with non-local receptive fields. The graph convolution operation generalizes the classic convolution to arbitrary graphs. In this work, the graph is dynamically computed from similarities among the hidden features of the network, so that the powerful representation learning capabilities of the network are exploited to uncover self-similar patterns. We introduce a lightweight Edge-Conditioned Convolution which addresses vanishing gradient and over-parameterization issues of this particular graph convolution. Extensive experiments show state-of-the-art performance with improved qualitative and quantitative results on both synthetic Gaussian noise and real noise.

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arXiv2019

Image Denoising with Graph-Convolutional Neural Networks

Recovering an image from a noisy observation is a key problem in signal processing. Recently, it has been shown that data-driven approaches employing convolutional neural networks can outperform classical model-based techniques, because they can capture more powerful and discriminative features. However, since these methods are based on convolutional operations, they are only capable of exploiting local similarities without taking into account non-local self-similarities. In this paper we propose a convolutional neural network that employs graph-convolutional layers in order to exploit both local and non-local similarities. The graph-convolutional layers dynamically construct neighborhoods in the feature space to detect latent correlations in the feature maps produced by the hidden layers. The experimental results show that the proposed architecture outperforms classical convolutional neural networks for the denoising task.

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arXiv2019

Sampling of graph signals via randomized local aggregations

Sampling of signals defined over the nodes of a graph is one of the crucial problems in graph signal processing. While in classical signal processing sampling is a well defined operation, when we consider a graph signal many new challenges arise and defining an efficient sampling strategy is not straightforward. Recently, several works have addressed this problem. The most common techniques select a subset of nodes to reconstruct the entire signal. However, such methods often require the knowledge of the signal support and the computation of the sparsity basis before sampling. Instead, in this paper we propose a new approach to this issue. We introduce a novel technique that combines localized sampling with compressed sensing. We first choose a subset of nodes and then, for each node of the subset, we compute random linear combinations of signal coefficients localized at the node itself and its neighborhood. The proposed method provides theoretical guarantees in terms of reconstruction and stability to noise for any graph and any orthonormal basis, even when the support is not known.

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arXiv2018

Steerable Discrete Cosine Transform

In image compression, classical block-based separable transforms tend to be inefficient when image blocks contain arbitrarily shaped discontinuities. For this reason, transforms incorporating directional information are an appealing alternative. In this paper, we propose a new approach to this problem, namely a discrete cosine transform (DCT) that can be steered in any chosen direction. Such transform, called steerable DCT (SDCT), allows to rotate in a flexible way pairs of basis vectors, and enables precise matching of directionality in each image block, achieving improved coding efficiency. The optimal rotation angles for SDCT can be represented as solution of a suitable rate-distortion (RD) problem. We propose iterative methods to search such solution, and we develop a fully fledged image encoder to practically compare our techniques with other competing transforms. Analytical and numerical results prove that SDCT outperforms both DCT and state-of-the-art directional transforms.

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arXiv2017

Steerable Discrete Fourier Transform

Directional transforms have recently raised a lot of interest thanks to their numerous applications in signal compression and analysis. In this letter, we introduce a generalization of the discrete Fourier transform, called steerable DFT (SDFT). Since the DFT is used in numerous fields, it may be of interest in a wide range of applications. Moreover, we also show that the SDFT is highly related to other well-known transforms, such as the Fourier sine and cosine transforms and the Hilbert transforms.

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