Method and apparatus for suppressing ringing artifacts within super-resolution image processing

A method of generating higher-resolution images from lower-resolution images within a super-resolution technique, comprising:

• loading available low-resolution frames;
• estimating motion for available low-resolution frames;
• performing motion masking for available low-resolution frames;
• and
• performing a frame loop as follows for each frame of the available low-resolution frames for,
• extracting high frequency information from an input super resolution (SR) image for each low-resolution frame, and
• updating high frequency components of the images of the low-resolution frames in response to weighted averaging of the high frequency information over a desired number of frames, N, toward suppressing non-recurrent noise and without updating the SR input being input,
• wherein said weighted averaging assigns higher weights to high frequency information associated with higher levels of the motion estimation, and lower weights to high frequency information associated with low accuracy motion estimation,
• outputting higher resolution versions of the low resolution images;
• wherein by increasing the number of frames, N, ringing artifacts are reduced, while less sharpness boost is received in response to the method.

An apparatus for generating higher-resolution images from lower-resolution images within a super-resolution technique, comprising:

• a computer configured for processing sequences of images;
• and
• programming executable on said computer for,
• loading available low-resolution frames,
• estimating motion for available low-resolution frames,
• performing motion masking for available low-resolution frames,
• extracting high frequency information from an input super resolution (SR) image for each of the available low-resolution frame within a frame loop, and
• updating high frequency components of each of the available low-resolution frames within the frame loop to boost sharpness in response to an averaging of the high frequency information over a desired number of frames, N, without updating the SR input, and outputting higher resolution versions of the low resolution images.

A computer-readable media containing a computer program executable on a computer configured for performing a super-resolution technique on video images and causing the computer to output images having higher spatial resolution that the images being input to the computer, comprising:

• loading available low-resolution frames;
• estimating motion for available low-resolution frames;
• performing motion masking for available low-resolution frames;
• extracting high frequency information from an input super resolution (SR) image for each of the available low-resolution frame within a frame loop;
• updating high frequency components of each of the available low-resolution frames within the frame loop in response to an averaging of the high frequency information to boost low resolution frame sharpness;
• wherein said averaging is performed over a desired number of frames N;
• said updating performed without updating the SR input;
• and
• outputting higher resolution versions of the low resolution images.