Blind multichannel reconstruction of high-resolution images using wavelet fusion

We developed an approach to the blind multichannel reconstruction of high-resolution images. This approach is based on breaking the image reconstruction problem into three consecutive steps: a blind multichannel restoration, a wavelet-based image fusion, and a maximum entropy image interpolation. The blind restoration step depends on estimating the two-dimensional (2-D) greatest common divisor (GCD) between each observation and a combinational image generated by a weighted averaging process of the available observations. The purpose of generating this combinational image is to get a new image with a higher signal-to-noise ratio and a blurring operator that is a coprime with all the blurring operators of the available observations. The 2-D GCD is then estimated between the new image and each observation, and thus the effect of noise on the estimation process is reduced. The multiple outputs of the restoration step are then applied to the image fusion step, which is based on wavelets. The objective of this step is to integrate the data obtained from each observation into a single image, which is then interpolated to give an enhanced resolution image. A maximum entropy algorithm is derived and used in interpolating the resulting image from the fusion step. Results show that the suggested blind image reconstruction approach succeeds in estimating a high-resolution image from noisy blur-red observations in the case of relatively coprime unknown blurring operators. The required computation time of the suggested approach is moderate. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.