Restoration of missing intensity of still images by using optical flow

Abstract

AbstractThis paper proposes an accurate method for the restoration of missing intensities of still images by using the optical flow. It is important in restoration to reconstruct missing edges correctly. Therefore, this paper modifies the optical flow conventionally used for motion analysis in video images and applies it to the restoration of missing intensities. Further, the proposed method introduces a new index expressing the correlation of intensities between two pixels into the scheme for calculation of the optical flow in order to obtain a flow which gives more accurate estimated values. The optical flow calculated by this index provides the pixel from the neighborhood whose intensity is most similar to that of the target pixel, so that the estimated intensity is not affected by pixels whose intensities are quite different. Consequently, even when multiple edges pass through the missing area or the direction of the edge changes significantly inside the area, the proposed method can reconstruct the edges correctly. Some experimental results are presented in order to verify the high performance of the proposed method. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 37(3): 49–57, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.20376