Use of a diffuser for producing texture masks for image processing

The use of a diffuser in synthesizing binary texture-variance masks for applications in image processing is investigated. The binary texture-variance masks are used to separate various objects in an image on the basis of their spatial texture variance. The diffuser is required to reduce the speckling present in the mask. The reduction in speckling is described quantitatively as a reduction of the misclassification probability associated with the separation of the objects into several texture classes. General results are furnished for the statistics of the field scattered by the diffuser, and these are used to obtain expressions for the misclassification probabilities in the presence of a diffuser.