Oriented texture completion by AM-FM reaction-diffusion

We provide an automated method to repair broken, occluded oriented image textures. Our approach is based on partial differential equations (PDEs) and AM-FM image modeling. Reconstruction of the texture occurs via simultaneous PDE-generated diffusion and reaction. In the diffusion process, the image is adaptively smoothed, preserving important boundaries and features. The reaction process produces the reconstructed textural information in the occluded image regions. Gabor (1946) filters are designed and used in the reaction process using an AM-FM dominant component analysis. An AM-FM model of the texture image is constructed, making it possible to localize the reaction filters spatio-spectrally. In contrast to previous disocclusion techniques that depend on interpolation, on continuity of the connected components within the image level sets, or on texture estimation, the reaction-diffusion process proposed here yields a seamless transition between the recreated region and the unoccluded image regions. Using AM-FM dominant component analysis, we avoid the ad hoc parameter selection typified with other reaction-diffusion approaches. As a useful example, we focus on the repair of broken, occluded fingerprints. We also treat several exemplary natural textures to demonstrate the technique's generality.