scholarly journals No-Reference Image Quality Assessment with Reinforcement Recursive List-Wise Ranking

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 8336-8343
Author(s):  
Jie Gu ◽  
Gaofeng Meng ◽  
Cheng Da ◽  
Shiming Xiang ◽  
Chunhong Pan
Keyword(s):  
Image Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Image Quality Assessment ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Reference Image ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Ranking Problem ◽  
Ranking List ◽  
Markov Decision

Opinion-unaware no-reference image quality assessment (NR-IQA) methods have received many interests recently because they do not require images with subjective scores for training. Unfortunately, it is a challenging task, and thus far no opinion-unaware methods have shown consistently better performance than the opinion-aware ones. In this paper, we propose an effective opinion-unaware NR-IQA method based on reinforcement recursive list-wise ranking. We formulate the NR-IQA as a recursive list-wise ranking problem which aims to optimize the whole quality ordering directly. During training, the recursive ranking process can be modeled as a Markov decision process (MDP). The ranking list of images can be constructed by taking a sequence of actions, and each of them refers to selecting an image for a specific position of the ranking list. Reinforcement learning is adopted to train the model parameters, in which no ground-truth quality scores or ranking lists are necessary for learning. Experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our approach compared with existing opinion-unaware NR-IQA methods. Furthermore, our approach can compete with the most effective opinion-aware methods. It improves the state-of-the-art by over 2% on the CSIQ benchmark and outperforms most compared opinion-aware models on TID2013.

No-Reference Image Quality Assessment Based on Multi-Order Gradients Statistics

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 10505-1-10505-16
Author(s):  
Yin Zhang ◽  
Xuehan Bai ◽  
Junhua Yan ◽  
Yongqi Xiao ◽  
C. R. Chatwin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Image Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Image Quality Assessment ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Image Distortion ◽  
Image Feature ◽  
Reference Image ◽  
Gradient Magnitude ◽  
Distortion Type

Abstract A new blind image quality assessment method called No-Reference Image Quality Assessment Based on Multi-Order Gradients Statistics is proposed, which is aimed at solving the problem that the existing no-reference image quality assessment methods cannot determine the type of image distortion and that the quality evaluation has poor robustness for different types of distortion. In this article, an 18-dimensional image feature vector is constructed from gradient magnitude features, relative gradient orientation features, and relative gradient magnitude features over two scales and three orders on the basis of the relationship between multi-order gradient statistics and the type and degree of image distortion. The feature matrix and distortion types of known distorted images are used to train an AdaBoost_BP neural network to determine the image distortion type; the feature matrix and subjective scores of known distorted images are used to train an AdaBoost_BP neural network to determine the image distortion degree. A series of comparative experiments were carried out using Laboratory of Image and Video Engineering (LIVE), LIVE Multiply Distorted Image Quality, Tampere Image, and Optics Remote Sensing Image databases. Experimental results show that the proposed method has high distortion type judgment accuracy and that the quality score shows good subjective consistency and robustness for all types of distortion. The performance of the proposed method is not constricted to a particular database, and the proposed method has high operational efficiency.

scholarly journals Evaluation of focus and deep learning methods for automated image grading and factors influencing image quality in adaptive optics ophthalmoscopy

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Danuta M. Sampson ◽  
David Alonso-Caneiro ◽  
Avenell L. Chew ◽  
Jonathan La ◽  
Danial Roshandel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Image Quality ◽  
Quality Assessment ◽  
Adaptive Optics ◽  
Image Quality Assessment ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Ground Truth ◽  
Disease Status ◽  
Retinal Location ◽  
Imaging Tool ◽  
Multiclass Classifier

AbstractAdaptive optics flood illumination ophthalmoscopy (AO-FIO) is an established imaging tool in the investigation of retinal diseases. However, the clinical interpretation of AO-FIO images can be challenging due to varied image quality. Therefore, image quality assessment is essential before interpretation. An image assessment tool will also assist further work on improving the image quality, either during acquisition or post processing. In this paper, we describe, validate and compare two automated image quality assessment methods; the energy of Laplacian focus operator (LAPE; not commonly used but easily implemented) and convolutional neural network (CNN; effective but more complex approach). We also evaluate the effects of subject age, axial length, refractive error, fixation stability, disease status and retinal location on AO-FIO image quality. Based on analysis of 10,250 images of 50 × 50 μm size, at 41 retinal locations, from 50 subjects we demonstrate that CNN slightly outperforms LAPE in image quality assessment. CNN achieves accuracy of 89%, whereas LAPE metric achieves 73% and 80% (for a linear regression and random forest multiclass classifier methods, respectively) compared to ground truth. Furthermore, the retinal location, age and disease are factors that can influence the likelihood of poor image quality.

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