Patent ID: 8514303

Claim:
A method for imaging a scene, said method comprising: encoding electromagnetic energy from the scene in a predetermined way to produce encoded electromagnetic energy; imaging the encoded electromagnetic energy to form an encoded optical image; receiving and capturing said encoded optical image to produce raw electronic image data corresponding to said encoded optical image; decoding said raw electronic image data so that the encoding and the decoding cooperate with one another to produce pre-processed image data representing at least one characteristic that is changed relative to an associated characteristic of said scene, and said pre-processed image data includes, as a byproduct of the cooperation between said encoding and decoding, at least one artifact as compared to said raw electronic image data; and compensating for said artifact by applying a nonlinear post-processing operation to alter a part of the pre-processed image data that contains the artifact while retaining the characteristic in the balance of the pre-processed image data, wherein said nonlinear post-processing operation includes defining a scanning region having a shape which overlays a portion of the raw electronic image data to encompass a plurality of image data values within said raw electronic image data, scanning the scanning region through the raw electronic image data by movement thereof through a series of positions in said raw electronic image data establishing, for a given one of the image data values encompassed by the scanning region corresponding to each of said positions, a predicted range for the image data values that is based at least in part on said plurality of image data values, wherein establishing said predicted range includes (i) determining an average value associated with said plurality of image data values encompassed by said scanning region, (ii) establishing a standard deviation associated with said plurality of image data values within the scanning region, and (iii) defining said predicted range as including said average value and all data values that differ from the average value by less than a multiple of said standard deviation, comparing said predicted range for each given data value to a corresponding pre-processed data value, and based on said comparing, identifying said artifact as at least one outlying pre-processed data value that lies outside of the predicted range, wherein said compensating includes correcting said artifact by changing said outlying pre-processed data value to conform to the predicted range.