Image replacement through texture synthesis

Abstract

Photographs and images often have regions which are in some sense flawed. Often, there may be a stain or an undesired feature covering a significant portion of the image, and an algorithm that can fix the image is desired. We propose a technique based on Heeger and Bergen's texture synthesis algorithm (1995). By integrating a composition step into the aforementioned algorithm one portion of the image can be substituted with a synthetic texture derived from another portion of the image. The goal of this synthetic texture is to create a plausible patch without visible seams or repetitive features. We compare this technique, which works on areas that are stochastic in nature, with other variations of image replacement which utilize a combination of image composition and texture synthesis.