Fast edge-guided interpolation of color images

Abstract

We propose a fast adaptive image interpolation method for still color images which is suitable for real-time applications. The proposed interpolation scheme combines the speed of fast linear image interpolators with advantages of an edge-guided interpolator. A fast and high performance image interpolation technique is proposed to interpolate the luminance channel of low-resolution color images. Since the human visual system is less sensitive to the chrominance channels than the luminance channel, we interpolate the former with the fast method of bicubic interpolation. This hybrid technique achieves high PSNR and superior visual quality by preserving edge structures well while maintaining a low computational complexity. As verified by the simulation results, interpolation artifacts (e.g. blurring, ringing and jaggies) plaguing linear interpolators are noticeably reduced with our method.