Signal-dependent and independent Optical Image System in CCD Cameras

Abstract

This article deals with a pristine method to estimate the noise introduced by optical imaging systems, such as CCD cameras. The puissance of the signal-dependent photon noise is decoupled from the puissance of the signal-independent electronic noise. The method relies on the multivariate regression of sample mean and variance. Statistically kindred image pixels, not obligatorily connected, engender scatter points that are clustered along a straight line, whose slope and intercept measure the signal-dependent and signal-independent components of the noise puissance, respectively. Experimental results carried out on a simulated strepitous image and on true data from a commercial CCD camera highlight the precision of the proposed method and its applicability to dissever R–G–B components that have been redressed for the nonlinear effects of the camera replication function, but not yet interpolated to the full size of the mosaiced R–G–B image.