|Publication number||US7260273 B2|
|Application number||US 10/637,344|
|Publication date||21 Aug 2007|
|Filing date||8 Aug 2003|
|Priority date||8 Aug 2003|
|Also published as||US20050031225|
|Publication number||10637344, 637344, US 7260273 B2, US 7260273B2, US-B2-7260273, US7260273 B2, US7260273B2|
|Inventors||Graham Sellers, Sachin Agrawal|
|Original Assignee||Seiko Epson Corporation|
|Export Citation||BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan|
|Patent Citations (11), Referenced by (7), Classifications (16), Legal Events (5)|
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet|
The present invention relates generally to image processing and in particular to a system and method of editing a digital image to remove unwanted artefacts, objects and the like.
Digital cameras are becoming increasingly popular and as a result, a demand for image processing software that allows photographers to edit digital images exists. In many instances, unwanted objects and/or artefacts are captured in digital images. Removing these unwanted objects and/or artefacts from the digital images without degrading image quality is often desired.
Many techniques for removing artefacts from images have been considered. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,590,558 to Glover et al. discloses a method and apparatus for removing objects from CT images in which localized regions of the original object are not reproduced in order to illuminate artefacts generated by objects within those regions. An operator defines a rub-out region encompassing the object to be removed. An average function within the rub-out region, which is strongly influenced by the discontinuity created by the object, is then created. The projection set is modified using the average function to eliminate the object from the projection set. The modified projection set is then used to create a reconstructed image.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,405 to Kojima discloses an image amending method wherein selected pixel data to replace original pixel data is generated based primarily on ordinary pixels, which are adjacent the original pixels to be replaced. Pixels around an attention pixel to be replaced are classified into groups in accordance with their closeness to the attention pixel. Depending on the nature of the attention pixel, different pixels surrounding the attention pixel are examined to determine the value of the pixel to be used to replace the attention pixel.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,194 to Cok discloses a cloning technique for digital image retouching. During the cloning technique, a cloned area and a surround area are determined. Using image pixel values, the mean, slope and quadratic coefficient in each colour are computed for the cloned area and the surround area and if desired for sub-regions of the surround area. The values of the cloned pixels are adjusted so that their mean, slope and quadratic term match the mean, slope and quadratic term of the surround area or of the best fitting sub-region of the surround area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,784,498 to Venable discloses a method for synthesizing background texture in an image. During the method, a texture exemplar from an image is selected and an area to be back filled is identified. An estimate of the synthesized texture is generated and predetermined spatial domain constraints are applied to the estimate. The spatial domain constraint estimate is operated upon by a Fourier transform to create a spectral function. Predetermined spectral domain constraints are applied to the spectral function and an inverse Fourier transform is performed to produce a synthesized texture. The synthesized texture is inserted into the area of the image to be back filled if it is determined to be adequate.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,892,853 to Hirani et al. discloses a method for removing scratch and wire noise from digitized images. The method utilizes a soft edge noise mass to allow a smoother blending of the reconstructed noise and the image around the noise. The method utilizes both spatial and frequency domains to reconstruct contiguous noisy pixels and reconstruct textures.
Although the above-described references disclose methods for editing images, there exists a need for an improved system and method of removing unwanted objects and/or artefacts from a digital image. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a novel system and method of editing a digital image to remove unwanted artefacts, objects and the like.
According to one aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of creating a texture to replace a designated area of a digital image comprising the steps of:
In a preferred embodiment, after the blending, further bands of pixels that border the designated area are selected and blended with the pixels in the texture. It is also preferred that the designated area is delineated by a geometric shape in the form of a rectangle. In this case, during the selecting, bands of pixels of width MaxPoints bordering opposite major sides of the rectangle are selected and wherein during the further selecting, bands of pixels of width M bordering opposite minor sides of the rectangle are selected. A mirror of the selected band of pixels having width MaxPoints on each opposite major side of the rectangle is copied in a repeating pattern to define a pixel matrix corresponding in size to the designated area and the defined pixel matrices are blended according to the first blending equation to create the texture.
In the preferred embodiment, the first blending equation is of the form:
The first blending function is expressed as:
In the preferred embodiment, the blending of the further selected bands of pixels is performed using a second blending equation expressed as:
The second blending function is expressed as:
PixelWeight2=(# of pixels from the edge of the minor side of the designated rectangular area)/M
According to another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of editing a digital image to remove an unwanted object comprising the steps of:
According to yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a digital imaging editing tool for editing a digital image to remove an unwanted object comprising:
According to still yet another aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer readable medium embodying a computer program for editing a digital image to remove an unwanted object, said computer program including:
The present invention provides advantages in that when an unwanted object is located within a designated rectangular area of the digital image, the unwanted object can be removed and replaced with an appropriate background or texture that is basically indistinguishable from the surrounding background of the digital image.
An embodiment of the present invention will now be described more fully with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
The present invention relates generally to a method and system of editing a digital image to remove unwanted artefacts, objects and the like (hereinafter collectively referred to as “objects”) by creating a texture to replace a delineated region or area of the subject digital image using pixels bordering the delineated area. During the method, an area of the digital image that is to be replaced with a texture is designated. Bands of pixels bordering the designated area are selected and blended according to blending functions to create the texture. The texture is inserted into the digital image to replace the pixels within the designated area and thereby remove the unwanted object. Since the texture is created using pixels of the background surrounding the unwanted object, the texture is basically indistinguishable from the background resulting in a high quality digital image.
The present invention is preferably embodied in a software application executed by a processing unit such as a personal computer or the like. The software application may run as a stand-alone digital image editing tool-or may be incorporated into other available digital image editing applications to provide enhanced functionality to those digital image editing applications. A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described more fully with reference to
Turning now to
At step 102, when the designated rectangular area of the digital image to be removed is specified by the user, the boundaries of the designated rectangular area are compared with the horizontal rows and vertical columns of the pixels in the digital image to determine if the designated rectangular area is rotated with respect to the horizontal and vertical axes of the digital image (see step 120 in
Following alignment of the designated rectangular area with the horizontal and vertical axes of the digital image, the shape of the designated rectangular area is examined to determine its two largest or major opposite sides (step 124). Once the two largest opposite sides of the designated rectangular area have been determined, bands of pixels bordering these opposite major sides are selected and blended to create the texture (steps 104 and 106).
Turning now to
After the first and second pixel matrices have been defined, the two pixel matrices are blended to form an initial texture T1 as shown in
The blending function PixelWeight1 is defined by the following equation:
The parameter ExponentScale determines the degree of blending of the texture with the digital image. A higher ExponentScale value results in a smoother blend and a lower ExponentScale value results in a sharper blend. When the parameters CosAmplitude, CosFrequency are set to zero, the blending function PixelWeight1 takes the form shown in
Once the first and second matrices have been blended to yield the initial texture T1, further blending is performed using bands of pixels bordering the two smaller sides of the designated rectangular area. Specifically, a band of pixels B3 and B4 having a selected pixel width M, adjacent each smaller side of the designated rectangular area is selected (step 108). The default M value is ten (10) pixels. The M value can however, be changed by a user via the graphical user interface. A mirror of each band of pixels is then blended with a band of pixels B5 and B6 in the initial texture T1 having a width M extending along the corresponding smaller side of the designated rectangular area (step 110). This blending is performed according to the blending equation:
The second blending function PixelWeight2 is defined by the following equation:
PixelWeight2=(# of pixels from the edge of the smaller side of the designated rectangular area)/M (4)
As will be appreciated, bands of pixels bordering the major sides of the delineated rectangular area are blended to create an initial texture. The initial texture is then modified by blending bands of pixels bordering the minor sides of the delineated rectangular area with the initial texture thereby to yield a final texture. With the final texture complete, the texture replaces the pixels within the delineated rectangular area (step 112).
button 220 and a perform editing button 222. Selecting the zoom-in Z+ button 214 enlarges the image presented in the palette 202 making it easier for the user to delineate smaller objects in the selected image with a rectangle. Selecting the zoom-out Z−button 216 shrinks the image presented in the palette 202 making it easier for the user to delineate larger objects in the selected image with a rectangle. Selecting the fit-to-palette
button 220 fits the entire image to the size of the palette 202.
In the present embodiment, the designated area of the digital image to be replaced with a suitable replacement texture is described as being delineated by a rectangle. Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the designated area can be delineated by virtually any desired shape. Regardless of the shape of the designated area, bands of pixels bordering the designated area are blended to form the replacement texture.
The texture creation process has also been described as a background process where separate matrices are defined and then blended to form the initial texture, that itself is further blended before being inserted into the selected digital image. Those of skill in the art will appreciate that the texture creation process may be performed as a foreground process directly on the selected digital image. In this case, as the texture creation process is performed the pixels within the designated area of the selected digital image are modified in the series of steps described above until the designated area includes the final replacement texture.
The present invention can be embodied as computer readable program code stored on a computer readable medium. The computer readable medium is any data storage device that can store data, which can thereafter be read by a computer system. Examples of computer readable medium include read-only memory, random-access memory, CD-ROMS, magnetic tape and optical data storage devices. The computer readable program code can also be distributed over a network including coupled computer systems so that the computer readable program code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.
Although a preferred embodiment of the present invention has been described, those of skill in the art will appreciate that variations and modifications may be made without departing from the spirit and scope thereof as defined by the appended claims.
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|U.S. Classification||382/275, 345/629, 382/286, 345/582, 382/282, 382/284|
|International Classification||G06T5/00, G06T3/00, G06K9/36, G06K9/40, H04N1/387, G06T1/00, G09G5/00, G06T11/00|
|8 Aug 2003||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: EPSON CANADA, LTD., CANADA
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNORS:SELLERS, GRAHAM;AGRAWAL, SACHIN;REEL/FRAME:014388/0921
Effective date: 20030723
|16 Mar 2004||AS||Assignment|
Owner name: SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION, JAPAN
Free format text: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST;ASSIGNOR:EPSON CANADA, LTD.;REEL/FRAME:014434/0412
Effective date: 20040311
|4 Nov 2008||CC||Certificate of correction|
|21 Jan 2011||FPAY||Fee payment|
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|4 Feb 2015||FPAY||Fee payment|
Year of fee payment: 8