Zhang, JunChen, XiuhongZhao, YanLi, H.B. Levy, X. Tong, and K. Yin2015-02-282015-02-2820131467-8659https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.12247Edge-preserving image filtering is a valuable tool for a variety of applications in image processing and computer vision. Motivated by a new simple but effective local Laplacian filter, we propose a scalable and efficient image filtering framework to extend this edge-preserving image filter and construct an uniform implementation in O(N) time. The proposed framework is built upon a practical global-to-local strategy. The input image is first remapped globally by a series of tentative remapping functions to generate a virtual candidate image sequence (Virtual Image Pyramid Sequence, VIPS). This sequence is then recombined locally to a single output image by a flexible edge-aware pixel-level fusion rule. To avoid halo artifacts, both the output image and the virtual candidate image sequence are transformed into multi-resolution pyramid representations. Four examples, single image de-hazing, multi-exposure fusion, fast edge-preserving filtering and tone-mapping, are presented as the concrete applications of the proposed framework. Experiments on filtering effect and computational efficiency indicate that the proposed framework is able to build a wide range of fast image filtering that yields visually compelling results.I.4.3 [Image Processing and Computer Vision]EnhancementImage Filtering