Restoration of digital images with known space-variant blurs from conventional optical systems

Space-variant (SV) digital image restoration methods attempt to restore images degraded by blurs that vary over the image field. One specific source of SV blurs is that of geometrical optical aberrations, which divert light rays as they pass through the optical system away from an ideal focal point. For simple optical system, aberrations can become significant even at moderate field angles. Restoration methods have been developed for some space- variant aberrations when they are individually dominant, but such dominance is not typically characteristic of conventional optical systems. In this paper, an iterative method of restoration that is applicable to generalized, known space-variant blurs is applied to simulations of images generated with a spherical lines. The method is based on the Gauss-Seidel method of solution to systems of linear equations. The method is applied to sub-images having off- axis displacements of up to 453 pixels, and found to be superior in restoration effectiveness to Fourier methods in that range of field angles.