在图像处理中，在进行如边缘检测这样的进一步处理之前，通常需要首先进行一定程度的降噪。中值滤波是一种非线性数字滤波器技术，经常用于去除图像或者其它信号中的杂讯。这个设计思想就是检查输入信号中的采样并判断它是否代表了信号，使用奇数个采样组成的观察窗实现这项功能。观察窗口中的数值进行排序，位于观察窗中间的中值作为输出。然后，丢弃最早的值，取得新的采样，重复上面的计算过程。

中值滤波是图像处理中的一个常用步骤，它对于斑点噪声和椒盐噪声来说尤其有用。保存边缘的特性使它在不希望出现边缘模糊的场合也很有用。

In signal processing, it is often desirable to be able to perform some kind of noise reduction on an image or signal. The median filter is a nonlinear digital filtering technique, often used to remove noise. Such noise reduction is a typical pre-processing step to improve the results of later processing (for example, edge detection on an image). Median filtering is very widely used in digital image processing because, under certain conditions, it preserves edges while removing noise (but see discussion below).