For a linear map between finite-dimensional real inner-product spaces,
Thus the penalty is the support function of the compact convex set . The Moreau decomposition makes its proximal operator the identity minus the Euclidean projection onto a convex set.
A closed convex set in a finite-dimensional Euclidean space is the intersection of all containing closed half-spaces. For a point outside a nonempty set, its Euclidean projection onto a convex set gives a separating normal. Applied to an epigraph, this turns geometric separation into affine lower bounds and is a key step in the Fenchel-Moreau theorem.
Let be the family of closed half-spaces containing . Certainly . To prove the reverse inclusion, exclude an arbitrary .
Suppose first that is nonempty. Its Euclidean projection onto a convex set exists: minimizing the continuous squared distance may be restricted to a sufficiently large closed ball, whose intersection with the closed set is compact. Put . For every , convexity puts in for . Minimality of gives
Thus the closed half-space
contains , while excludes . Since every point outside is excluded by some member of ,
This is the half-space representation of a closed convex set. If , every point can again be excluded by a containing half-space, so the intersection is empty. If , no proper half-space contains it and the empty intersection is, by convention, .
If , the family of proper containing half-spaces is empty and its intersection is, by convention, . If , every closed half-space contains it and their intersection is empty. Now suppose is a nonempty proper closed convex set. Take and let be its Euclidean projection onto a convex set. This projection exists: a minimizing sequence can be restricted to a bounded ball, and closedness gives attainment. It is unique by convexity and strict convexity of squared distance.
For , the segment remains in for . Minimality at implies
Thus the closed half-space contains but excludes , since . Every point outside is excluded by at least one containing half-space. The reverse inclusion is immediate, giving
This is the half-space representation of a closed convex set. The argument gives an explicit separating hyperplane rather than just citing a Hahn-Banach separation theorem.
Write and , with Euclidean adjoints determined by the chosen discretization and boundary conditions. Take the usual positive total generalized variation weights . Introduce a primal variable through
The support function of the row-ball product is a sum of row norms. Convex duality gives the equivalent augmented saddle problem
The equality follows by dualizing the row-ball constraint. With positive radii, strictly satisfies both row constraints, supplying the finite-dimensional qualification for this splitting. The original feasible dual set is compact and nonempty, and the quadratic primal term is coercive; saddle points exist. The TGV divergence splitting avoids the difficult projection onto .
Use the Chambolle–Pock algorithm. Choose with ; the sufficient bound is convenient. Initialize and , . For , compute
The dual update is a Euclidean projection onto a convex set onto ; the two primal updates are the quadratic proximal operator and radial soft thresholding. Their signs follow from . All substeps are closed form, and the standard finite-dimensional primal-dual convergence result applies to this saddle problem with the stated step-size condition. The iterates satisfy ; the additional constraint is enforced through the splitting at convergence, not claimed for every intermediate iterate. If a weight is zero, the corresponding row projection or support-function proximal step is interpreted directly rather than by division by zero.
Write and use the real pixelwise inner products. Let be the adjoint operator, defined by . For each nontrivial grid direction its one-dimensional formula is
with the analogous formula in for . Their sum is ; unused components and do not contribute. For , . If discrete divergence is defined, its sign convention is , as in the adjoint of a discrete forward gradient.
Define the compact convex set and its image . The image is compact and convex, hence closed, and contains zero. The finite-dimensional Euclidean duality formula , applied independently at every pixel, gives
Thus the penalty is the support function . Its convex conjugate is the indicator functional of a constraint set , equal to zero on and infinity elsewhere. For , the conjugate supremum is zero; for , the separation theorem supplies a direction with , and scaling that direction makes the supremum infinite.
The proximal operator is . It exists uniquely because the objective is continuous, coercive and strictly convex. The Moreau decomposition for a proper closed convex function gives . The second term is the Euclidean projection onto a convex set, so the projection residual for discrete total variation is
Alternatively, the variational characterization of convex projection says exactly when for every . Hence attains the support function at , giving and the same optimality condition. This supplies a direct verification of the Moreau decomposition step in this instance.
The printed wording needs “the residual after a projection”, rather than “the projection itself”. In general this denoising map is not a projection onto any fixed closed convex set. A metric projection onto a closed convex set is idempotent, while denoising a sufficiently large jump twice shrinks it twice. Concretely, for and data with rows and , the minimizer has rows and . Reapplying the map gives rows and , so it is not idempotent. These formulas have a global certificate: take , all other dual entries zero, giving with rows and ; it saturates every positive row difference and yields the primal optimality condition. The qualification is therefore not merely a consequence of a restricted two-level ansatz.
Computing is equivalent to minimizing over , since ranges over precisely . Differentiating with the adjoint operator gives , whose Lipschitz constant is . Starting with any , for example zero, the projected-gradient dual total variation algorithm is
The block formula is the Euclidean projection onto a convex set , since it clips each two-dimensional block to a Euclidean ball of radius . Both components must be clipped together for the isotropic block mixed norm.
For the unscaled forward differences, and likewise in the other direction, so . More exactly, for the one-dimensional path difference has eigenvalues , , and the square-grid operator sums two such spectra. Thus . Finite-dimensional projected gradient descent for a convex objective with an -Lipschitz gradient converges from every feasible starting point to a dual minimizer for fixed . The theorem assumes a nonempty closed convex set, a convex differentiable objective with globally Lipschitz gradient, and a nonempty minimizer set. All hold here: is compact and convex, and is a continuous convex quadratic. Finite-dimensional convergence is of the full sequence, rather than only its objective values.
Consequently any fixed step with is safe on this grid; the more conservative is also safe. The dual minimizer need not be unique because has a null space, but and uniquely. For , the gradient penalty vanishes and , so no positive- step restriction is needed.
For a differentiable convex function with -Lipschitz gradient and a proper lower-semicontinuous convex function , the proximal gradient method is
The proximal operator is . To obtain an explicit iteration for discrete isotropic total variation, let with the printed zero boundary differences and
The dual is minimization of over , and the primal minimizer is . Here must be the exact adjoint operator of these differences. For example,
with the analogous formula in for ; for both operators are zero. Equivalently use in the backward-difference expression, ignoring unused edge components.
The gradient of the dual objective is , with Lipschitz constant . Taking to be the indicator functional of a constraint set makes its proximal operator the Euclidean projection onto a convex set. Thus a valid explicit algorithm is
The bound follows by summing over grid differences. Finite-dimensional proximal gradient method convergence gives a dual minimizer and convergence of the recovered to the unique primal minimizer. Projection is pointwise in the dual; applying pointwise soft thresholding directly to would not compute the primal TV proximal operator.
Take and . Their proximal maps are the projections , so
The Douglas--Rachford shadow sequence converges in finite dimensions to a point of when the intersection is nonempty.
For , the euclidean projection onto a convex set is
The squared distance is a strictly convex function. Its restriction to the convex set can therefore have at most one minimizer by part (b). Closedness, together with finite dimensionality, supplies existence, although existence was not required to be proved.
The Euclidean projection onto a convex set is nonexpansive, and because the optimum is feasible. Therefore the projected subgradient method satisfies
The subgradient inequality gives , while Lipschitz continuity of the finite convex function gives . Hence
Summing this telescoping inequality for , and then bounding the smallest term by the average, yields
Writing , the right-hand side is minimized by the constant step size
Substitution gives
If , the initial point is already optimal and the result is immediate.
The objective is strictly convex, so the minimizer is unique. The Slater condition makes the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions necessary and sufficient. Absorb the box constraints into the Euclidean projection onto a convex set and attach a scalar multiplier to . Stationarity over the box is equivalent to
while primal feasibility requires . Coordinatewise, these conditions are
They are also sufficient because they minimize the Lagrangian over the box and satisfy the equality constraint. Thus the projection onto a box-constrained hyperplane reduces to solving the displayed one-dimensional continuous, nonincreasing equation for . The multiplier need not be unique on a flat interval, but the projected vector is unique.
The function is the support function . For a nonempty compact convex set,
so its convex conjugate is the indicator function . Applying the Moreau decomposition,
Multiplication of an indicator function by a positive scalar does not change it, and its proximal operator is the Euclidean projection onto a convex set. Therefore
Minimize over using
The pointwise Euclidean projection onto a convex set sends a block to . The gradient of has Lipschitz constant , so finite-dimensional projected gradient descent converges for . On an unscaled square grid with , is safe. Reconstruct ; unused dual directions may make the minimizing nonunique while the primal minimizer is unique.
The projected subgradient method minimizes a possibly nonsmooth convex function over a closed convex set by iterating with . Nonexpansiveness of Euclidean projection onto a convex set and the subgradient inequality give its basic convergence bound.