Method and apparatus for processing an image property map

An apparatus for processing an image property map, the apparatus comprising:

• a receiver circuit,
• wherein the receiver circuit is arranged to receive a light intensity image, a confidence map, and an image property map,
• wherein the light intensity image comprises light intensity values for pixels of the light intensity image,
• wherein the image property map comprises image property values for the pixels of the light intensity image, and
• wherein the confidence map comprises confidence values for the image property values;
• a filter circuit arranged to filter the image property map in response to the light intensity image and the confidence map,
• wherein the filter circuit is arranged to generate a filtered image property map,
• wherein the filter circuit is arranged to determine a combined neighborhood image property value in response to a weighted combination of neighborhood image property values for a first position in the filtered image property map,
• wherein the weighted combination of neighborhood image property values is image property values in a neighborhood around the first position, and
• wherein a weight for a first neighborhood image property value at a second position is dependent on a confidence value for the first neighborhood image property value and a difference between a light intensity value for the first position and a light intensity value for the second position;
• wherein the filter circuit is arranged to, determine the first filtered image property value for the first position as a combination of a first image property value at the first position in the image property map and the combined neighbor image property value for a first position in the filtered image property map, and
• wherein the filter circuit is arranged to determine the weight for the first neighborhood image property value in response to a difference measure for the confidence value for the first neighborhood image property value and a confidence value for the first image property value.