Blocking artifact removal based on blockiness estimation

Qinggang Zhou; Chris Basoglu; Woobin Lee

doi:10.1117/12.383014

19 April 2000 Blocking artifact removal based on blockiness estimation

Qinggang Zhou, Chris Basoglu, Woobin Lee

Proceedings Volume 3974, Image and Video Communications and Processing 2000; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.383014
Event: Electronic Imaging, 2000, San Jose, CA, United States

Abstract

We present a fast and robust blocking artifact removal method for images coded using block transforms. While other artifact removal methods apply complicated smoothing schemes on the entire image, this method estimates the level of blockiness and applies a simple low-pass filter only on the blocking artifacts. In this paper, we first formulate a function that describes the relative gradient continuities of the pixel values. This function makes use of the characteristics of the blocking artifact, such as the position and magnitude of the artifact, to distinguish real edges from the blockiness. The function is mostly continuous in smooth areas but discontinuous in blocky areas. The results of the function are compared to an empirically obtained threshold to determine the existence of a blocking artifact. Once the artifact is detected, any smoothing method can be applied. On test images coded with the JPEG standard, our method visually removed almost all of the blocking artifacts. The signal-to-noise also improved, but more importantly, the subjective quality of the images processed with our method was noticeably better than that of other methods. In addition, our method did not degrade the image areas where artifacts were not present. The false detection rate of our method was found to be less than 1% on the test images, thereby preserving the true edges in the image.

Citation Download Citation

Qinggang Zhou, Chris Basoglu, and Woobin Lee "Blocking artifact removal based on blockiness estimation", Proc. SPIE 3974, Image and Video Communications and Processing 2000, (19 April 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.383014

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