Author:
Martin Kraus
Affiliation:
Computer Graphics and Visualization Group, Technische Universität München, Germany
Keyword(s):
Rendering, image processing, blurring, pyramid algorithm, GPU, real-time.
Related
Ontology
Subjects/Areas/Topics:
Animation and Simulation
;
Computer Vision, Visualization and Computer Graphics
;
Image-Based Rendering
;
Real-Time Rendering
;
Rendering
;
Rendering Algorithms
;
Special Effects
Abstract:
Efficient image blurring techniques based on the pyramid algorithm can be implemented on modern graphics hardware; thus, image blurring with arbitrary blur width is possible in real time even for large images. However, pyramidal blurring methods do not achieve the image quality provided by convolution filters; in particular, the shape of the corresponding filter kernel varies locally, which potentially results in objectionable rendering artifacts. In this work, a new analysis filter is designed that significantly reduces this variation for a particular pyramidal blurring technique. Moreover, an efficient implementation for programmable graphics hardware is presented. The proposed method is named “quasi-convolution pyramidal blurring” since the resulting effect is very close to image blurring based on a convolution filter for many applications.