The Equivalence of Fourier-based and Wasserstein Metrics on Imaging Problems

Abstract: We investigate properties of some extensions of a class of Fourier-based probability metrics, originally introduced to study convergence to equilibrium for the solution to the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation. At difference with the original one, the new Fourier-based metrics are well-defined also for probability distributions with different centers of mass, and for discrete probability measures supported over a regular grid. Among other properties, it is shown that, in the discrete setting, these new Fourier-based metrics are equivalent either to the Euclidean-Wasserstein distance $W_2$, or to the Kantorovich-Wasserstein distance $W_1$, with explicit constants of equivalence. Numerical results then show that in benchmark problems of image processing, Fourier metrics provide a better runtime with respect to Wasserstein ones.