Apparatus and methods for smoothing images
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method for acuity-preserving image smoothing comprising:
- proceeding along at least a portion of a first dimension of received image pixels in a first direction and computing a first sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the first direction;
proceeding along at least a portion of the first dimension of received image pixels in a second direction and computing a second sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the second direction; and
for each individual pixel along the first dimension, computing an improved estimated pixel value for the individual pixel based on a data dependent combination of at least estimated pixel values in the first and second sequences,wherein at least one of the computing steps takes into account image derived information other than the pixel value of the pixel to be estimated.
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Abstract
Improved spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal noise reduction apparatus (10) and also apparatus for noise reduction in conjunction with one or several of the following functions: edge enhancement, spatial interpolation, magnification adjustment by spatial interpolation, and dynamic range compression (DRC). An embodiment of apparatus (10) comprises an image preprocessing unit (12), an estimation gain parameter computation unit (14) and a two-directional processor (16).
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20 Claims
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1. A method for acuity-preserving image smoothing comprising:
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proceeding along at least a portion of a first dimension of received image pixels in a first direction and computing a first sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the first direction; proceeding along at least a portion of the first dimension of received image pixels in a second direction and computing a second sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the second direction; and for each individual pixel along the first dimension, computing an improved estimated pixel value for the individual pixel based on a data dependent combination of at least estimated pixel values in the first and second sequences, wherein at least one of the computing steps takes into account image derived information other than the pixel value of the pixel to be estimated. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A video telephone system comprising:
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a video telephone codec for coding and decoding a video image; and noise reduction apparatus for reducing noise in the video image comprising; a first-direction pixel estimator proceeding along at least a portion of a first dimension of received image pixels in a first direction and computing a first sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the first direction; a second-direction pixel estimator proceeding along at least a portion of the first dimension of received image pixels in a second direction and computing a second sequence of estimated pixel values from the received image pixels defined along the second direction; and a data-dependent pixel estimator operative, for each individual pixel along the first dimension, to compute an improved estimated pixel value for the individual pixel based on a data dependent combination of at least estimated pixel values in the first and second sequences. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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Specification