Automatic detection and inpainting of specular reflections for colposcopic images

Abstract

Specular reflections are not wanted in images because they can really reduce the performance of image processing techniques. This is particularly true for medical images and especially for colposcopic images. There are several methods in the literature allowing to extract specular reflections, but only a few methods can perform an automatic extraction. In this paper, we propose a new method to extract and to restore specularities automatically. This method is based on Dichromatic Reflection Model (DRM) and multi-resolution inpainting technique (MIT). The DRM approach will retrieve specularities while the MIT technique re-establish colors in bright zones using local information. The proposed method achieves good results and does not need any a priori knowledge. The efficiency of this method for colposcopic images has been demonstrated through a collaboration with the oncology center of Marrakech University Hospital.