Patent ID: 8059207

Claim:
A method for temporally filtering noise from a plurality of sequential video frames comprising: selecting a first pixel from a current frame at a location (x,y) having an intensity I t (x,y); selecting a second pixel at (x,y) in a filtered frame immediately preceding the current frame, the filtered second pixel having an intensity denoted by ÃŽ t-1 (x,y); determining a motion vector [v x ,v y ] that provides a close match between a neighborhood containing the first pixel and a similarly configured neighborhood in the filtered frame that immediately precedes the first frame in time; determining the intensity of a third pixel at a location that is offset from the first pixel's by the magnitude and direction of the motion vector, the location being (xâˆ’v x , yâˆ’v y ) in the filtered frame immediately preceding the current frame, and the intensity being denoted by ÃŽ t-1 /(xâˆ’v x , yâˆ’v y ); and computing the output of the temporal filter at the location (x,y) to be a weight averaged sum of three intensity values: the intensities of the first pixel, the second pixel and the third pixel.