Atomic force microscope image enhancement using human visual system model properties and adaptive filters

Atomic force microscope (AFM) images are usually of poor quality and need to be interpreted visually. The human visual system (HVS) is generally modeled as an adaptive, multichannel and highly non-linear system. This paper proposes an adaptive image enhancement systems for improving the quality of the AFM images. The proposed method is based on a combination of an adaptive low pass filter and a single channel adaptive high pass filter using homomorphic processing. The proposed system is nonlinear through the use of the homomorphic transformation and the adaptation of contrast enhancement parameters to the change in the input local characteristics and contrast. Comparison with other fixed and adaptive contrast enhancement filters is made to show the improvement obtained using the proposed method.