Granted Patent B2

US 7,277,206 · App. 11/192,648 · Granted Oct 2, 2007

Abstract

Claims (36)

1. A computer readable medium storing computer-executable instructions defining a computer process that removes noise from a digital image, the computer process comprising:

providing a three-dimensional surface mapping representation of at least one image color channel as a surface over a plane of the image,

creating a virtual surface patch,

placing the surface patch against topography in the three-dimensional surface mapping of the image so that the virtual surface patch intersects topography of the three-dimensional surface with respect to at least some pixels of an image surface region,

adjusting one or more of height, tilt and curvature of the virtual surface patch with respect to the image surface to fit the surface,

then estimating a palliative value for the image surface fitted with the virtual surface patch for at least one pixel within the area of the surface patch from the adjustment of the surface patch, and

replacing the value of the at least one pixel of the digital image in the at least one image color channel with the palliative value.

2. A method for reducing image noise in a digital image, the method comprising:

obtaining image data of image pixel values; the image data expressed as at least a portion of a surface over the pixel space of an image;

specifying a local virtual surface patch;

fitting the local virtual surface patch to the image data expressed as at least a portion of a surface;

using the local virtual surface patch to estimate a palliative value of at least one pixel in the region of the local virtual surface patch;

replacing an original pixel value of the digital image with the palliative value.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the image noise is moiré pattern noise.

4. The method of claim 2 wherein the obtaining of image data includes establishing a one or more dimensional surface of pixel values above the two-dimensional plane representing the geometric space of the image.

5. The method of claim 2 wherein the image data includes non-locational color palette data which is one of single, two, three or four dimensional.

6. The method of claim 2 wherein the image data may be expressed as a surface which includes one of one or more points, one or more lines or one or more curves.

7. The method of claim 2 wherein the fitting operation includes adjusting one or more of the height, tilt and curvature of the local virtual surface patch with respect the image data expressed as a surface.

8. The method of claim 2 wherein the fitting operation includes a regression analysis to minimize the sums of the squared deviations between the local virtual surface patch and the image data expressed as a surface.

9. The method of claim 2 wherein the image data involves the lightness color channel.

10. The method of claim 2 wherein the pixel values correspond to one or more color channels.

11. The method of claim 2 wherein the pixel values correspond to one or more color channels including a lightness color channel and averaging is used for one or more other color channels.

12. The method of claim 2 which further includes discarding at least a portion of the local virtual patch after estimating the palliative value of the at least one pixel.

13. A computer readable medium storing computer-executable instructions defining a computer process that removes noise from a digital image, the computer process comprising:

establishing an image data of image pixel values;

specifying a local virtual surface patch;

fitting the local virtual surface patch to the image data;

using the local virtual surface patch to estimate a palliative value of at least one pixel in the region of the local virtual surface patch;

replacing an original pixel value of the digital image with the palliative value.

14. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the image noise is moiré pattern noise.

15. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the obtaining of image data includes establishing a one or more dimensional surface of pixel values above the two-dimensional plane representing the geometric space of the image.

16. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the image data may be expressed as a surface which includes one of one or more points, one or more lines or one or more curves.

17. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the fitting operation includes adjusting one or more of the height, tilt and curvature of the local virtual surface patch with respect the image data.

18. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the fitting operation includes a regression analysis to minimize the sums of the squared deviations between the local virtual surface patch and the image data.

19. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the pixel values correspond to one or more color channels.

20. The computer readable medium of claim 13 wherein the pixel values correspond to one or more color channels including a lightness color channel and averaging is used to for one or more other color channels.

Assignments (14)