Comparative Study of Weighted and Coupled Second- and Fourth-Order PDEs for Image Despeckling in Grayscale, Color, SAR, and Ultrasound

TL;DR

This paper introduces and compares two PDE-based despeckling methods that effectively reduce noise while preserving image details across various imaging modalities.

Contribution

It proposes a weighted PDE model and a coupled PDE framework, both designed for improved speckle noise suppression and edge preservation.

Findings

Both models outperform existing methods like TDM and TDFM.

Quantitative metrics show higher PSNR, SSIM, and Speckle Index scores.

Extensive tests confirm effectiveness across grayscale, color, SAR, and ultrasound images.

Abstract

Partial Differential Equation (PDE)-based approaches have gained significant attention in image despeckling due to their strong capability to preserve structural details while suppressing noise. However, conventional second-order PDE models tend to generate blocky artifacts, whereas higher-order models often introduce speckle patterns. To resolve it, this paper proposes and comparatively analyzes two advanced PDE-based frameworks designed for speckle noise suppression while preserving the fine edges. The first model introduces a novel weighted formulation that combines second and fourth-order PDEs through a weighting parameter. The second-order diffusion coefficient employs grayscale and gradient-based indicators, while the fourth-order term is guided solely by a Laplacian-based indicator. The second model constructs a coupled PDE framework, where independent fourth and second-order components are explicitly solved in an iterative manner. In this coupled structure, each diffusion coefficient is defined separately to enhance adaptability in varying image regions. Both models are implemented using the explicit finite difference method. The proposed techniques are extensively evaluated on a variety of datasets, including standard grayscale, color, Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), and ultrasound images. Comparative experiments with the existing Telegraph Diffusion Model (TDM) and Fourth-Order Telegraph Diffusion Model (TDFM) demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approaches in reducing speckle noise while effectively preserving fine image structures and edges. Quantitative evaluations using PSNR, SSIM and Speckle Index metrics confirm that the proposed models produce higher image quality and enhanced visual perception. Overall, the presented PDE-based formulations provide a reliable and efficient framework for image despeckling in both natural and medical imaging.