Median filtering applied to Gaussian sources (upper row), power-law sources (second row), Gaussian filaments ℱ_G (third row), and power-law filaments ℱ_P (bottom row) with sizes H (FWHM) of 8′′ and 16′′ (left) and to the same images after addition of random Gaussian noise with σ = 0.33 (middle) and background ℬ modeled as a large Gaussian with FWHM of 512′′ (right). The radii R of circular sliding windows given by the indices on the curve labels correspond to the relative radii W = R/H = { 1,2,4,8 }. Original intensity profiles of , , ℱ_G, and ℱ_P are shown in gray, filtered profiles of the sources and filaments with H = 8 and 16′′ are plotted in red and blue, whereas profiles of and ℬ are colored in cyan and green, respectively. Large sliding windows (W> 2) truncate Gaussian shapes so efficiently (cf. Table 1) that some of the annotated curves become invisible (fall entirely below the lower edge of the plots).