A theoretical analysis of the properties of median filters

Abstract

Necessary and sufficient conditions for a signal to be invariant under a specific form of median filtering are derived. These conditions state that a signal must be locally monotone to pass through a median filter unchanged. It is proven that the form of successive median filtering of a signal (i.e., the filtered output is itself again filtered) eventually reduces the original signal to an invariant signal called a root signal. For a signal of length L samples, a maximum of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">\frac{1}{2}(L - 2)</tex> repeated filterings produces a root signal.