Image Sequence Restoration: A PDE Based Coupled Method for Image Restoration and Motion Segmentation

Abstract

This article deals with the problem of restoring and segmenting noisy image sequences with a static background. Usually, motion segmentation and image restoration are tackled separately in image sequence restoration. Moreover, segmentation is often noise sensitive. In this article, the motion segmentation and the image restoration parts are performed in a coupled way, allowing the motion segmentation part to positively influence the restoration part and vice-versa. This is the key of our approach that allows to deal simultaneously with the problem of restoration and motion segmentation. To this end, we propose a theoretically justified optimization problem that permits to take into account both requirements. A suitable numerical scheme based on half quadratic minimization is then proposed and its stability demonstrated. Experimental results obtained on noisy synthetic data and real images will illustrate the capabilities of this original and promising approach.