Patent ID: 8503811

Claim:
A method for reconstructing an image from an image source, comprising: inputting a digital image signal comprising a plurality of pixels into an image processing device programmed for executing a curvature-preserving filter, wherein the filter comprises at least zeroth, first and second moments, the second moments comprising a null covariance matrix; filtering the image signal by the filter to produce a denoised image; and outputting the denoised image to a graphic display device or a machine analysis tool, wherein the image processing device comprises a central processing unit, a microprocessor or a digital signal processor having software stored therein for, prior to the step of multiplying, executing a Fourier transform to produce a Fourier-transformed signal comprising vector wave numbers in Fourier space, and after multiplying the image signal by the filter, executing an inverse Fourier transform to produce the denoised image, wherein the filter has a Fourier representation comprising g ~ ⁡ ( k ) / p ~ ⁡ ( k ) = exp ⁡ ( 1 2 ⁢ σ 2 ⁢ k 2 - a 4 ⁢ k 4 ) , where a is a scale length that determines a width of the filter, k is the vector wave number, k is the magnitude of k, and σ is a standard deviation of the point-response function.