The scalar median filter has been widely used for reducing impulsive noise while preserving signal edges in signals and images. The vector median filter was introduced as a means for filtering color images and other types of vector fields. It has been stated that the vector median filter preserves the color better than applying the scalar median filter to each color component separately.

In this work, experiments and analysis were conducted in order to quantify the relative performance of the scalar median filter, the vector median filter, and the extended vector median filter. The improvement in the vector signal-to-noise ratio was used as a measure of noise reduction. Based on the experimental results, the vector median filter does not, in general, perform better than the scalar median filter. The extended vector median filter performance varies based on the variance of the image and the noise. In general, the extended vector median performs better than the vector median filter and similar to the scalar median filter.