Inpainting is the process of reconstructing lost or deteriorated parts of images and videos. For instance, in the case of a valuable painting, this task would be carried out by a skilled image restoration artist. In the digital world, inpainting (also known as image interpolation or video interpolation) refers to the application of sophisticated algorithms to replace lost or corrupted parts of the image data (mainly small regions or to remove little defects).
Contents |
There are many objectives and applications of this technique.
In photography and cinema, is used for film restoration; to reverse the deterioration (e.g., cracks in photographs or scratches and dust spots in film; see infrared cleaning). It is also used for removing red-eye, the stamped date from photographs and removing objects to creative effect.
This technique can be used to replace the lost blocks in the coding and transmission of images, for example, in a streaming video. It can also be used to remove logos in videos.
A common method is to use differential equations (such as Laplace's equation) with Dirichlet boundary conditions for continuity (a seamless fit).[1]
Other methods follow isophote directions (in an image, a contour of equal luminance), to do the inpainting.[2]
Manual computer methods include using a clone tool or healing tool, to copy existing parts of the image to restore a damaged texture. Texture synthesis may also be used.[3]
Exemplar-based image inpainting attempts to automate the clone tool process. It fills "holes" in the image by searching for similar patches in a nearby source region of the image, and copying the pixels from the most similar patch into the hole. By performing the fill at the patch level as opposed to the pixel level, the algorithm reduces blurring artifacts caused by prior techniques. [4]