In this paper we propose a novel Blind Image Quality Assessment via Self-Affine Analysis (BIQSAA) method by considering the wavelet transform as a linear operation that decomposes a complex signal into elementary blocks at different scales or resolutions. BIQSAA decomposes a distorted image into a set of wavelet planes ω λ, ϕ of different spatial frequencies λ and spatial orientations ϕ, and it transforms these wavelet planes into one-dimension vector Ω using a Hilbert scanning. From the vector Ω there were obtained their wavelet coefficient fluctuations estimated by the inverse of the Hurst exponent in decibels, whose scaling-law or fractal behavior was obtained by applying Fractal Geometry or Self-Affine Analysis. The scaling exponents calculated for the coefficient fluctuation behavior of Image Lena at 24bpp, at 1.375bpp, and at 0.50bpp were H 24b p p = 0.0395, H 1.375b p p = 0.0551, and H 0.50b p p = 0.0612, respectively. Our experiments show that BIQSAA algorithm improves in 14.36% the Human Visual System correlation, respect to the four state-of-the-art No-Reference Image Quality Assessments.
Keywords: Image quality assessment; Self-affine analysis; Signal processing; Wavelet transform.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC part of Springer Nature 2021.