Joint Patch-Group Based Sparse Representation for Image Inpainting

Sparse representation has achieved great successes in various machine learning and image processing tasks. For image processing, typical patch-based sparse representation (PSR) models usually tend to generate undesirable visual artifacts, while group-based sparse representation (GSR) models produce over-smooth phenomena. In this paper, we propose a new sparse representation model, termed joint patch-group based sparse representation (JPG-SR). Compared with existing sparse representation models, the proposed JPG-SR provides a powerful mechanism to integrate the local sparsity and nonlocal self-similarity of images. We then apply the proposed JPG-SR model to a low-level vision problem, namely, image inpainting. To make the proposed scheme tractable and robust, an iterative algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) framework is developed to solve the proposed JPG-SR model. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model is efficient and outperforms several state-of-the-art methods in both objective and perceptual quality.